


All That Remains

by KouriArashi



Series: The Sum of Its Parts [14]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All around bad eggs, Demons, F/M, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Multi, Mystery, Pack Feels, Werewolf Hunters, because I always hurt Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-04-25 23:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4981357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles calls Oblivion. Nobody answers.</p>
<p>Part 15 of The Sum of its Parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everybody! It's that time again!
> 
> Herein lies a story about demons, nephilim, and sorcerers. =D

 

“Answering service,” the voice at the other end of the phone says.

Stiles clears his throat and says, “This is Stiles Stilinski. I need to leave a message for Lorelei White.”

“Yes, sir, I can take that message,” the voice says.

When it comes to dealing with Jonas Aronsson, Oblivion is the only answer that Stiles could come up with that wouldn’t upset a lot of people. He’s not sure he likes it as an answer. He’s not sure that Oblivion will even agree to it. But it’s all he’s got.

The week after Wednesday Arnelle’s aborted wedding to Marty Drake, Stiles sat down with his father and Chris Argent and explained the situation. Jonas Aronsson had hired an assassin from the Nazario territory, with Ariah’s help, to try to kill his father. He was angry at his father for a variety of reasons, none of them anywhere near enough to justify murder.

The problem with Jonas, Stiles thinks, is that as much as he refers to Jonas as a psycho, he’s not actually crazy. He’s a macho jerk with self-entitlement issues and an inadequacy complex. Jonas Aronsson is the kind of guy who will eventually shoot up a mall or a movie theater, and Stiles wants him dealt with. But the problem is, Jonas Aronsson is also Mikael Aronsson’s son. And Stiles just doesn’t know how to go about handling it.

“I’m asking the two of you, not as hunters or as cops, but as fathers,” Stiles said to the two men in front of him, “what you think we should do.”

Chris grimaced and rubbed a hand over his face. Tom said, “We have no way of proving any of this, am I right?”

Stiles shrugged. “Give me five minutes with Jonas and a tape recorder and I can get a confession for you. All I’d have to do is tell Jonas I know it wasn’t him because he isn’t smart enough.”

“Fair point,” Tom said. “Then I think it should be tried in a court of law. There was nothing supernatural about it. There’s no reason why Jonas shouldn’t be arrested and have due process.”

“I agree to a point,” Chris said, “but we don’t know how Sally would react. With her talent at sorcery, she could influence a juror, erase evidence, burn down the courthouse, for crying out loud. There are all manners of ways she could delay or stop a trial. And that’s if she didn’t decide to just break Jonas out of jail and go on the run with him.”

Tom looked skeptical. “Do we actually think Sally cares about Jonas enough to do anything like that?”

“To a point, yes,” Stiles said. “She’s sure as hell not in love with him. But if it wasn’t a lot of effort, if she didn’t have to take any risks, then yeah. She might do it just to fuck with me, or because it amuses her to game the system. Or because Jonas is a good lay. Who knows?”

“Thanks for that mental image,” Tom said, rolling his eyes. “Okay. Sally is a problem, agreed. But there are ways of guarding against sorcery, right?”

Stiles nodded. “I was thinking about Oblivion.”

“I don’t know that they would take him,” Chris said, shaking his head.

Tom looked between the two of them. “I know we’ve used Oblivion before, but refresh my memory.”

“Oblivion is an organization of sorcerers that run – they’re not exactly prisons,” Chris said. “They’re more like rehabilitative services. They take in people who have been victimized by the supernatural world in some way, and help them recover. I, uh, I might be a good example myself. If I hadn’t been able to recover from what Sally had done to me, Oblivion would have taken me in.”

“We used them for Cassidy, down in Neptune, and Jennifer Blake,” Stiles said. “Now, they were both perpetrators as well as being victims, but in both their cases, their original trauma was the source of their less-than-acceptable actions. It wasn’t even supernatural in Cassidy’s case, but Oblivion agreed to take them in to prevent them from causing more damage, and to help them deal with what had been done to them.”

Tom was nodding slowly. “But Jonas isn’t like that.”

“No. Jonas is just a garden variety bad dude,” Stiles said. “If it weren’t for his sorcerer girlfriend, I’d let him be arrested. And to be honest, if it weren’t for his father, I’d probably just let someone else quietly take care of him.”

“Look, you can’t keep Mikael in the dark about this,” Tom said. “He needs to know what happened.”

Chris gave a little grimace. “I’m not sure I agree,” he said. “If they had no other answers, if he needed closure, that would be one thing. But currently, Mikael believes that Ariah arranged it, and now Ariah’s dead. He’s satisfied with that answer. I can’t imagine how to tell him that his son tried to have him assassinated over petty arguments.”

“I think he’ll notice when his son up and disappears,” Tom remarked.

“Well, one of the nice things about Oblivion is that they provide cover,” Stiles said.

“Cover that an experienced hunter wouldn’t see right through?” Tom asked, and Stiles just gave a shrug.

“It’s a moot point,” Chris said, “if they won’t take him. So why don’t we start there? And if they say no, we’ll have to think about something else.”

They all agree on that, so Stiles leaves the message with the answering service and goes about his business. He gets absorbed in his school work and it doesn’t occur to him until several hours later that it’s a little odd that Lorelei hasn’t called him. Both times he had used Oblivion before, they had called him back within about five minutes.

But he supposes that Lorelei has her own business to attend to, and he has no idea what her schedule is like. He certainly doesn’t want to pester her, because she’s terrifying, so he continues to write about the California drought until it’s dinner time.

When he still hasn’t heard by the next day, he calls the answering service again. The phone rings and rings and rings, but nobody ever answers.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Who do you call when the, the fucking Ghostbusters stop answering their phone?” Stiles asks, flailing at Derek, who’s listening with a brooding expression as he sketches. “I mean, seriously? I don’t even know enough about Oblivion to know where to start with this. All I know is that Lorelei, the only person there who I’ve met, could hand me my ass on a silver platter. And she’s not even the boss. If someone took these guys out, the entire world is in serious trouble.”

“Let’s not leap to conclusions,” Derek says. “It’s been one day. They could just be busy with something. Just because they’ve always answered the phone promptly before doesn’t make one missed call a national emergency.”

“I guess that’s true,” Stiles says, “but when exactly does it become an emergency? Let’s not forget that while I wait for them, I still have Jonas Aronssonn with his finger on the trigger.”

Derek grimaces, but says, “I don’t think that’s as urgent as you think it is. Mikael’s attempted assassination was almost six months ago now. If Jonas was going to try again, he probably would have done it already.” He watches Stiles for a minute, and then says, “If you’re that worried, you really should tell Mikael.”

“Nrrrg,” is Stiles’ opinion on that. “Okay. How about this. I will attempt not to leap to any conclusions about Oblivion. But I am going to leap to preliminary research mode. See what I can find out about them, about how they operate. I mean, I took Chris’ word that they were on the level, so I never really looked into them in depth.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Derek says. “Just don’t let it get in the way of your midterms.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Stiles grumbles, and Derek just gives a classic Hale eye roll.

The problem with researching Oblivion is that nobody seems to know much about them. They operate based almost entirely on word of mouth, so the first few people he asks can only tell him what he already knows, and where they heard about it. Chris heard about it from Julien’s mother. Wednesday has used them twice, and she heard about them from Angela Peretti. Angela heard about them from the hunter she had taken over Florida for when she retired.

Since asking hunters isn’t getting him anywhere, and Lorelei is definitely some sort of sorceress, Stiles asks Deaton. It’s a slow day at the clinic, so he’s doing worksheets for his political science class while Deaton administers eyedrops to a litter of feral kittens he found. When Stiles asks about Oblivion, he responds in classic Deaton ambivalence: “Why do you need to know?”

“Because they aren’t answering their phones,” Stiles says.

Deaton looks up at this, and a faint frown crosses his face. “That would be unusual.”

“No kidding,” Stiles says.

Deaton scratches the ears of a mewling kitten. “Do you know what a nephilim is?”

“Uh, I think they’re a type of angel?” Stiles ventures. Religious theory isn’t his strong point.

“Not quite,” Deaton says, “although I have seen it used that way. Well, we could talk about Biblical interpretation all day, but to make a long story short, they’re the descendants of angels. Specifically, of Fallen Angels. They married humans and had children, and those children had children. Most of the nephilim who still exist today are very diluted.”

“Wait, wait.” Stiles pushes his hair back from his face. “I’ve already gotten confirmation of an afterlife. Are you telling me that God, the Bible, Adam and Eve, all that’s real?”

Deaton grimaces. “Not precisely. It’s all interpretation. There are bits and pieces of every religion that are true, and vast quantities that are not true. The Earth was not created in seven days, God does not care if you wear polyester, and Jesus was most likely an actual prophet, but not the son of God.”

“I’m just thinking, wow, if the Bible is real, I’m breaking lots of rules,” Stiles says.

“Really, Stiles?” Deaton looks amused. “As you said, you have confirmation of the afterlife. If _Peter Hale_ didn’t go to Hell, I think you’re probably safe.”

“Oh, yeah. Good point.” Stiles shakes that off. “Okay, so. Angelic descendants. Where does Oblivion fit in?”

“As far as I know, nephilim founded Oblivion and continue to run it to this day,” Deaton says.

Stiles lets out a low whistle. “So that’s why Lorelei is so powerful. She’s part angel. Wow. Okay, that, uh, that’s unnerving. But they’re still good guys, right? I mean, you think ‘fallen angel’ you think ‘bad’, but Lorelei is good.”

“Children don’t inherit the sins of their fathers, do they?” Deaton asks, depositing a squirming kitten back into an enclosure. “I imagine many of them like to help humanity specifically to distance themselves from the very thing you just said.”

“Okay then,” Stiles says, because he’s one hundred percent not interested in getting in trouble with God. “So if they suddenly stopped answering their phones, that’s got to be something big going on, right?”

“I can’t fathom what it would be, but yes,” Deaton says. “I’ll ask some questions, see if anyone knows anything about dark magic being used.”

“Cool,” Stiles says, hopping off the counter. “Thanks.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” Tom asks, looking up as Stiles bounces into the Stilinski house, carrying a bag of groceries. “You just missed a week for Wednesday’s wedding, for crying out loud.”

“I am at school,” Stiles says. “I’m in two places at once. The powers of technology!” He sees his father giving him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, uh. Mac and Erica are going to my classes for me and recording them with Mac’s laptop, then e-mailing me the file so I can watch. It’s not as good as being there, but at least I can still see the lectures. And I’m doing my homework and sending it to them to turn in to my teachers. I might, uh, might have faked some paperwork for the disability office saying that I have a chronic illness and am confined to my bed at the moment.”

“Ah,” Tom says. Stiles braces himself, but then Tom says, “That’s actually pretty clever. As long as the teachers aren’t allowed to penalize you for your lack of attendance, you can still do all the work. Okay. Why are you still in town?”

“Because I’m making you dinner, obviously,” Stiles says, and holds up a bag. “Turkey burgers.”

“You keep feeding me ground turkey and I’m going to find an alpha to bite me so I won’t have to worry about my cholesterol anymore,” Tom jokes, and Stiles makes a face at him. “Seriously. Why are you still in town?”

“I wanted to talk to Deaton about Oblivion,” Stiles says. “It’s almost impossible to get any solid information on them.”

Tom goes over to the refrigerator and pulls out a beer for himself and a soda for Stiles. “I assume you’ve done your usual computer witchery?”

“Yeah. The phone number that I normally call them at has no records whatsoever. Lorelei has called me a couple times – from different numbers – but none of those numbers go anywhere either. I don’t have any pictures of her or any fingerprints to run. Now, there are only eleven people in the US named Lorelei White, presuming that’s even her real name, but none of their records have any standout details to them.”

Tom considers this while he takes a pull on his beer and Stiles starts to unpack the groceries. “So these places that Oblivion runs. They’re less prison and more like mental hospitals, am I right?”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell,” Stiles says.

“Then I wonder if there’s someone else who might be able to give you some information,” Tom says. “They have to have staff, right? If Oblivion is serious about helping these people. They’ll have a professional who works with them to provide counseling and therapy. Now, who do we know that provides therapy for people who have been traumatized by the supernatural world?”

Stiles’ eyes widen. “You don’t think . . .”

“I think that Gwen Mulroney is one of the best,” Tom says. “That’s why I chose her for you. I researched her very thoroughly when I was looking for a counselor I thought would actually be able to help you. It would not surprise me in the least if she worked for Oblivion.”

“Dad, you’re a genius,” Stiles says. He takes out his phone and thumbs through to get to Gwen’s cell phone. It rings twice, and he realizes he’s holding his breath. What if Gwen doesn’t answer? What if she’s in trouble, too? He can’t fathom a world in which he can survive without Gwen.

But she picks up on the third ring. “This is Gwen Mulroney.”

“Hey, Gwen, it’s Stiles,” he says. “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you after hours but this isn’t technically patient-therapist business.”

“Oh?” Gwen says, sounding partly amused, but just a little bit cautious.

“I’m trying to get some information and I think you might be able to help me,” Stiles says. This isn’t one hundred percent unusual. He often includes Gwen when he sends out broad requests for information, partly because her husband is a cryptozoologist and so he knows more about creature lore than anyone else Stiles knows. But those usually come as e-mails. “Have you ever done any work for a group named Oblivion?”

There’s a marked pause, before Gwen says, “I’m not allowed to talk about my other clients with you, Stiles. You know that.”

“I’m not asking about your clients, I’m just – Gwen, they’re not answering their phone. I can’t get in touch with anyone there, and I think something might be really wrong.”

Another pause. Then Gwen says, “We can’t talk about this over the phone. Can you come to Fresno tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Stiles says.

“I’ll meet you at that Starbucks down the street from my office. One o’clock?”

“Sounds good to me,” Stiles says. “Be, uh, be careful, Gwen.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, and hangs up.

“Well, that was interesting,” Stiles says to his phone. He sticks it back into his pocket and goes back to the groceries. “She obviously knows something. And she wasn’t happy to hear that I wasn’t able to contact them.”

“She probably wanted some time to make her own inquiries,” Tom says. “That’s why she wanted to meet you tomorrow instead of today.”

“I hope she’s careful,” Stiles says with a grimace.

“Son, I am one hundred percent sure that Gwen Mulroney can take care of herself,” Tom says. “Now, you’re going to at least put some cheese on those turkey burgers, right?”

“I think a little bit of cheese is okay,” Stiles says.

He’s barely gotten the burgers started when his phone rings. It’s the normal ring, which means it’s coming from an unknown number. He swipes to answer and then tucks it underneath his ear. “Stilinski Scrapyard; you break it, we’ll take it.”

“Mr. Stilinski.” It’s a woman’s voice, with a hint of a British accent. “This is Sarah White, from Oblivion.”

Stiles nearly drops his phone. “Oh! I – oh. I usually deal with Lorelei.”

“Lorelei is unavailable right now,” Sarah says. “I’m prepared to take your case.”

“Unavailable?” Stiles asks. “Is she okay? Where is she?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking to someone other than Lorelei,” Stiles says, hoping he can get more information out of her.

“That’s your prerogative.”

“Well, can you tell me when she might be ‘available’ again?” Stiles asks.

“I’m not at liberty to say. Do you have a case for me, Mr. Stilinski?”

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Stiles says, flagging down his father and pointing to his laptop. Tom gets his meaning almost immediately, sitting down and starting to trace the call. “It’s not the typical sort of case, that’s why I was hoping to talk to Lorelei. The thing is that it’s a hunter, pretty well-established, but he’s going off the rails. Not just going after supernatural creatures, I know you guys wouldn’t get involved in that, but he tried to kill his father and he robbed an electronics store.”

“Mm hm,” Sarah says. “Is there a reason that the mundane law can’t solve this problem?”

“His girlfriend is a sorcerer,” Stiles says. “We’re afraid that if we go through mundane channels, that she’ll just find a way to weasel him out of it.”

“I see. I’ll discuss the case with my superiors and get back to you.”

“Okay. Thanks,” Stiles says, and hangs up. He looks over at his father.

“She was calling you from clear across the country,” Tom says. “Though I don’t know how much that matters. New York, to be precise. And the number was a prepaid cell phone. These people don’t leave much trail.”

Stiles purses his lips. Then he dials Oblivion’s main number again. No one answers. “Something is really weird here,” he says. “If Oblivion’s main line is down, how did Sarah even get my number? Where’s Lorelei? What the hell is going on?”

“Hopefully Gwen will be able to shed some light on things,” Tom says, and shakes his head. “Come on, let’s eat. Where’s Derek, by the way? Is he joining us?”

“He had to go back to San Mateo this morning. He has a show this week.”

“So you’re on your own tonight?” Tom asks, arching his eyebrows.

“Well, originally I planned to drive back to San Mateo after dinner, but now apparently I’m going to stay the night so I can go to Fresno tomorrow, so yeah, I’m on my own tonight.” Stiles shakes his head. “I’ll be okay, Dad.”

Tom gives him the side-eye, but then nods. “Okay,” he says. “If you’re sure.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s rare that Stiles has to sleep alone, and he’s not looking forward to it. He sets his laptop up next to his bed and sets up a skype call with Scott’s laptop, so he can hear the faint noise of the pack breathing and moving around. It’s nowhere near as good as having them with him, but better than nothing.

He sleeps restlessly and has bad dreams, and he’s woken up by the phone the next morning. He fumbles at it and blinks at the screen, seeing that it’s Dr. Deaton calling. He’s too tired for one of his greetings, so he picks up what, “What’s up, Doc?”

Deaton doesn’t respond to his joke. “Stiles, we might have a problem,” he says.

“What else is new.” Stiles sits up, rubbing his hand over his face. “Okay, lay it on me.”

“As I told you, I called around to several of the other members of the Druidic Council, to see if anyone had done any large scale magic lately. A friend of mine in New York said that there had been a disturbance there a few days ago. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she described it to me, and it sounds like the effect when a demon is summoned.”

“Oh, great,” Stiles says. “A demon. Could that have anything to do with Oblivion?”

“I’m not sure,” Deaton says, “but there are only a few types of creatures who would be a match for a nephilim. We’re talking about either a demon, a highly ranked Faerie, or a very powerful witch or warlock.”

“Hm,” Stiles says. “And I assume that we don’t think it was the latter, since you’ve got most of them on a lock. So someone summoned up a demon and went after Oblivion.”

“That would be my best guess. Harriet said she was going to check out the scene and get back to me.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Keep me posted.”

He says goodbye and hangs up the phone, suddenly feeling like this is way above his pay grade. Isn’t there anyone responsible for handling this sort of thing? Demons and angelic descendants duking it out with him caught in the middle sounds like a recipe for disaster that he has no desire to put in his oven. He sighs and shakes his head, climbing out of bed to get dressed. He’s got a meeting to get to.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much exposition I am so sorry XD

 

He beats Gwen to the coffee place, since he left himself some extra time on the road, so he orders for both of them, getting himself some green tea because he feels pretty jittery. She comes in a few minutes later and glances around the room before heading over to his table and giving him her usual warm smile. That’s a relief; he’s glad to see that she’s not angry with him. Or at least if she is, she hides it well. “Where’s Derek?” she asks.

“He had an art showing,” Stiles says. “I’ve been released into the wild.”

Gwen gives a quiet chuckle and picks up her coffee, thanking Stiles for it. She takes a sip and appears to ponder things for a few moments. “You understand that I can’t tell you anything about any of Oblivion’s residents,” she says.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “No problem.”

“You might not think so once I’ve gone over what I _can_ tell you,” Gwen says. She sets her cup down. “I’m going to be honest with you, Stiles. I have a major conflict of interest here. As your counselor, it’s my duty to tell you that I don’t think you should get involved with this. I don’t think it’s the best idea for your mental health.”

“But . . .?” Stiles says.

“But I also know that, as your counselor, I can’t tell you what to do,” Gwen says, “and as someone who’s known you several years, I know that you’re going to get involved whether I think it’s best or not. Which means that, as someone who is _not_ your counselor, I feel that you should be as well-informed as possible.”

“It might not matter,” Stiles says. “Someone from Oblivion contacted me yesterday. They said Lorelei wasn’t available but took my case. Which means that if you think I should step off, I can still get my shit handled.”

Gwen is frowning. “Who called you?”

“Uh, Sarah White,” Stiles.

“Are you sure she’s actually a part of Oblivion?”

Stiles blinks. “Uh, well, I don’t know how I would check that. I mean, she said all the same things that people from Oblivion have said before.”

“The thing is,” Gwen says, “that Oblivion is a very decentralized organization. Each region has their own field agent and their own logistics agent. It would be very unusual for them to assign a case to a field agent from outside the region. Although I suppose that if something had truly happened to Lorelei, they might do that.”

“Wait,” Stiles says, holding up a finger. “Start at the beginning.”

After a moment, Gwen nods. “I was approached by Oblivion about five years before I met you. It was actually not long after I had started my private practice, although I had considerable experience in hospitals and had written several papers by then. You have to be careful when you write about supernatural trauma. There’s a lot of coded language around it – words you use so people will know what you mean if they’re in the know, or will come to different conclusions if they aren’t.

“A woman named Naomi approached me and said she worked at an institutional facility for victims of supernatural trauma who were in for long-term care, and asked if I would be interested in treating them. I said yes, and she took me to the facility. They’re very secretive. The entire first year I went, I was picked up, and rode blindfolded. Only after that was I given the location and allowed to drive myself. There are magic protections on the place that are specifically keyed for each employee, so nobody else can enter or leave. I go for three days, once a month, although I usually go over an extra day or two if there’s a new admission.”

“So how does it work?” Stiles asks.

“Like I said, it’s very decentralized, and the facilities don’t talk to each other,” Gwen says. “I think there are seven branches in North America. The woman who answers the phone – in your case, Naomi – directs the call to the appropriate field agent, who explores the case, verifies the facts, and then decides whether or not the candidate is appropriate.”

“So ‘I’ll present the case to my superiors’ basically means ‘I’m going to make sure you aren’t full of shit’?” Stiles asks.

Gwen nods. “The field agents are authorized to make their own decisions. They’re responsible for picking the patient up and transporting them to the facility. Each region also has a logistics agent, who answers the phone and does all the paperwork. Arranges travel, provides the documents that explain the patient’s departure, does the accounting, et cetera. Then each facility has a staff of three or four permanent employees – a cook and housekeeper, janitor and maintenance, and a nurse, typically. Then there are a few more on retainer, like myself, and a medical doctor. For security, these facilities don’t know where the others are located or who works there. Even the field agents only know where their own facility is. Only a very few people have been to more than one – myself included. Due to my . . . unique expertise, I’ve been called on by multiple field agents for particularly difficult cases. Which is how I know that the staffing, et cetera, are basically the same per region.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, nodding along. “So if Naomi goes missing, when will the agents know?”

“Not for days, possibly even weeks,” Gwen says. “You have to understand, most field agents only get two or three cases a year. The service they provide isn’t something that there’s a constant demand for. And when they aren’t working, they don’t check in. They don’t need to, and for security reasons, it’s typically better if they don’t.”

“So it’s possible that Lorelei never even got my message,” Stiles says, then frowns. “But then how would the other field agent have known?”

“Which is why I suspect that she wasn’t a member of Oblivion at all,” Gwen says. “Someone’s trying to throw you off. Mark my words, in the next day or two, Sarah will call you back and tell you that Oblivion has declined to take your case. And then you would have to deal with it your own way. Or you would if you weren’t you, that is.”

“Heh, true dat,” Stiles says, and Gwen rolls her eyes slightly. He frowns slightly. “Dr. Deaton said that only a few creatures would be capable of taking on one of the agents from Oblivion. He said it would have to be a faerie, a demon, or a highly ranked witch or warlock.”

“That sounds fairly accurate to me,” Gwen says, taking another drink of her coffee.

Stiles taps his fingers against the table for a long minute. “So I guess the real question is why. Why would someone go after Oblivion? Most of the people they take in are people who need help. I know they’ve occasionally taken in a villain as well as a victim, but this is kind of like attacking your local hospital.”

“My assumption,” Gwen says carefully, “is that they’re looking for someone that Oblivion has taken in.”

“Ah,” Stiles says. “That’s why you think I’ll want you to tell me about the residents.” He waves this aside. “I know you can’t, and I won’t push. Just tell me if you can point me in anyone’s direction.”

“I don’t know. I’m going to go to the facility tonight to see what I can find out. I called them last night to clear it. No, I can’t bring you, and I can’t tell you where it is. But I can talk to the residents and look through their files and see if I can get any leads for you.”

“Good enough,” Stiles says with a nod. “I assume you asked them if they had heard from Lorelei?”

“I did, and they haven’t,” Gwen says, “but again, that’s not unusual. They can go weeks or even months without contact from any of the field agents, and they don’t have a number for them. They _do_ have a number for Naomi. They tried to reach her and couldn’t.”

“So she’s totally AWOL, then,” Stiles says, mulling this over. “Okay. Find out what you can for me. I’m going to head back to San Mateo. Can’t take another night on my own.”

Gwen nods and finishes off her coffee. “I’ll call you,” she says. “And Stiles? If someone is truly powerful enough to target Oblivion, this is out of your league.”

“A lot of the things I’ve dealt with lately have been out of my league,” Stiles says dryly. “The problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any league set up to handle them. So I guess I’ll keep doing what I do best.”

Gwen shakes her head, looking tired. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles is back in San Mateo and just now thinking about the fact that he has midterms the next week when Deaton calls him. “What’d you find out?” Stiles asks.

“The demon was summoned in a small town east of Albany,” Deaton tells him, “but it’s a little different from previous summonings I’ve seen. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, when you summon a demon, it’s like . . . fishing. You cast your lure and see who bites.”

“You pays your money, you takes your chances,” Stiles says, remembering Jackson saying that about Marzanna.

“Yes, exactly,” Deaton says. “But this was different. The symbols used – they were looking for a very specific demon.”

“Please don’t say Lucifer, please don’t say Lucifer . . .”

Deaton gives a snort of amusement. “No. Not anything from Christian mythology. You’re safe there. No, it’s a demon named Jikininki.”

“Jin-a-what-now?”

“Jikininki,” Deaton says, and spells it for him. “If you look it up, you’ll find information about corpse-eating spirits from Buddhism. Well, Jikininki is the original. It’s very old and very powerful. This is not a demon you summon lightly.”

“Does he have some sort of beef with Oblivion?” Stiles asks.

“It,” Deaton says. “Not he. And I have no idea. I wouldn’t even know who to ask. All I can tell you is that it would take a very powerful witch or warlock to summon up a demon of this caliber.”

“Uh huh,” Stiles says, thinking this over. “Hey, what town did this happen in again?”

“Canaan, New York,” Deaton says.

“Thanks, Dr. D.,” Stiles says absently. “I’ll be in touch.” He hangs up and sits down in front of his laptop, pulling up Google Maps. Canaan, New York. Less than sixty miles away from Springfield, Massachusetts. A powerful witch or warlock who, if the demon they summoned gave them any clues, was either arrogant enough to think they could control it, or psychotic enough to consider releasing it.

His phone rings, and he glances down to see the same number from the day before. He picks up and says, “Stilinski.”

“Mr. Stilinski, this is Sarah White,” the crisp voice says. “I regret to inform you that Oblivion will not take your case.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Thanks.” He hangs up without another word. The call had come from New York, although the area code was for Connecticut. He knows exactly who he’s dealing with. He taps his phone a few times to call the number back.

“This is Sarah White,” the voice picks up.

“Hey, Sally,” Stiles says. “Nice accent.”

The crisp voice dissolves into giggles. “Oh, dear. You found me out rather quickly this time, didn’t you.”

“Didn’t take a genius,” Stiles says. “Big time demon being summoned like that. I thought you weren’t going to bother me while I was in school?”

“Aw,” Sally says, and Stiles can practically see her pouting. “I said that before you figured out about Jonas. I have to protect my boo, don’t I? Oblivion was the obvious answer for your dilemma, so I decided to take them out of play.”

“So you’d rather I just shoot Jonas in the face?” Stiles asks. “Because that can be arranged.”

“You don’t dare and you know it,” Sally says. “You’re dependent on Mikael’s support at the Conclave, and if he finds out you killed his son – oh, and I’ll make sure he finds out – then you’ll lose that. So Jonas is safe enough from you.”

“I don’t know how much Mikael would mind, if he found out that his son tried to have him killed,” Stiles says.

“That’s not true and you know it,” Sally says. “Parents are amazing, are they not? Their capacity to love their child and forgive them for so many wrongs. My father – Ned Stoddard that is – loves me even though I’ve turned out to be a useless twat in his opinion. And goodness knows you’ve put your father through the wringer. No, you won’t tell Mikael, not unless you don’t have any other choice. And you know that the mundane law couldn’t handle Jonas. Or, well,” she says, and giggles, “it can’t handle _me_.”

“Maybe I’ll just come shoot _you_ in the face,” Stiles suggests.

“Good luck with that,” Sally says, still laughing, and hangs up.

Stiles puts the phone down and curses. “Okay,” he growls. “It’s _on_ now.” He gets up and takes his laptop into the other room. “Pack meeting!” he shouts, and people start wandering in from every direction. He gives them all a minute to get assembled. “Okay, so, Sally’s decided to take a dig at Oblivion, and she’s summoned up a demon to help her do it,” he says. “A very specific demon, named Jin – Jack – I don’t fucking know how to say it,” he says, and spells it out. He gives all of them a brief summary of what’s happened so far. “So there are a few things we now need to do. We’ve got a lot of avenues to explore. Number one: I need to know everything there is to know about this demon.”

Allison is nodding. “Sally’s gone years and years without ever summoning a demon for help,” she says thoughtfully. “There must be a reason she’s done it now. This demon is connected to Oblivion somehow.”

“Right,” Stiles says. “So, research team: Boyd, Lydia, Isaac. Secondly: I need to know as much about every person who’s been captured by Oblivion in the past, oh, let’s say fifty years, that I can find out. We need to contact every hunter and benevolent sorcerer we can and see what they’ll give us. Allison, Scott, that’s you. Call Jake; he can help. Gwen is going to call me at some point in the next twenty-four hours to give me anything she feels she can give me, and I’ll pass that along to you.”

“Got it,” Scott says, nodding.

“Thirdly, computers,” Stiles says. “Mac. I want you to research every Lorelei White in the United States. Find out which one is the one we’ve dealt with. The logistics agent for this region is named Naomi. I know that’s not a lot to go on, but do what you can; call Veronica and ask her to work some magic. I’m going to give you every phone number I have for them. I know it hasn’t gotten us anywhere in the past, but dig deeper. See what you can turn up. Erica will be your assistant.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Mac says, snapping off a salute. Then she looks at Danny, and back at Stiles. “Erica?”

“Yes. I’ve got a special job for Danny. He, Derek, and I are taking a trip to Denver. We’re going to go talk to our friendly expert on both Sebastian Stone and demon symbiosis.”

“Oh, geez,” Danny says. “He’ll love us forever. It’s lacrosse season.”

“He can sit down with us for an hour and answer our questions,” Stiles says.

“Why do we have to go to Denver?” Derek asks. “Can’t we just call him?”

“I don’t know what sort of computer capabilities Sally has,” Stiles says. “Gwen didn’t want to talk to me about Oblivion over the phone. That might just be paranoia. Besides, there might be some sort of magic that Jackson can do to help us track this demon, so it’d be better if we’re there in person. It’s too far to drive, sorry. I’m going to make us reservations for a flight first thing in the morning. The sooner we get this handled, the better.”

Derek is frowning thoughtfully. “Why do you think this has something to do with Sebastian Stone?”

“If some big demon attacked Oblivion or has a problem with it, odds are Sally knows that because her Daddy told her,” Stiles says. “Now, we know that Stone never summoned a demon. He couldn’t without that bullet, thus the whole misadventure in the first place. But if something went down, he might have been involved. Jackson still has his journal. So he might be able to help us figure out what.”

Everyone is nodding. Mac raises her hand. “Can I make a suggestion you won’t like?” she says.

“Feel free,” Stiles says.

“Well, if Gwen went to Oblivion’s facility – I could hack her phone, get her GPS – “

“The thought had occurred to me,” Stiles says, “and I’m not going to rule it out completely. But at the moment, no. Gwen has clearly set down some boundaries that she doesn’t want me to cross and I’m going to do my very best to respect that. Because let’s face it, at the end of the day, I’m still going to need a therapist, and I really don’t want to have to explain my life to a new one.”

“Fair point,” Mac says.

“We’ll see how much Gwen can tell us before we decide it’s not enough,” Stiles says. “Okay, is everyone clear on their instructions? Great. And, uh, do your best to pass your classes, too. This is important but we’re not at red alert level yet. I’ll let you know if we get there.”

There’s a chorus of agreement, and then Stiles heads into his room to make flight reservations and throw together an overnight bag. Danny is going to text Jackson and let him know that they’re going to be coming for a visit. Stiles is sure that Jackson will be thrilled.

With that done, he sits down and e-mails the disability office of the school to make arrangements to take his midterm exams from off-campus. He has a feeling that he might not be back in time.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Jackson looks about as pleased to see them as ever, but his grumbling is fairly low-key as he shows them up to his dorm room. He introduces them to his roommate, who’s playing a video game with earbuds in and barely looks up. Wilma’s response is more enthusiastic, standing on her back legs to paw at Danny, then licking Stiles’ hand until Jackson shoos her away. “Okay,” he says, “What.”

Stiles arches his eyebrows, then gives the roommate a significant look.

Jackson rolls his eyes. “This is a college campus,” he says. “This is as much privacy as we’re gonna get. He can’t hear a thing when he’s got his music on. Hey, Kyle,” he adds, “the kitchen is serving free pizza.” This gains no response from the other young man, and Jackson just gestures as if to say ‘see?’

“Okay,” Stiles says, because what the hell, he doesn’t have all day. “I wanted to talk to you about Sebastian Stone.”

As usual, Jackson scowls at the mention of his former mentor, but he doesn’t argue. “What about him?”

“Did he ever mention a demon named Jikininki?”

Jackson shrugged. “No.”

“What about your shoulder devil? She know anything about it?”

Jackson scoffs. “The Druidic Council banished Marzanna, remember? They weren’t about to let a demon hang around.”

Amused, Stiles says, “Yeah, sure they did.”

After a long moment in which Jackson gives him a narrow-eyed look, his scowl fades a little. “You won’t tell anyone,” he says.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Stiles says. “Marzanna helped you save my life. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t handle it.”

Jackson sighs. “Okay. Yeah, they, uh – they did that banishing spell, right? And Marzanna just left before it took effect, and found me later. I mean, once the demons are on this plane, they can wander as they please. They’re just creatures of energy, you know? Anyway, Jikininki, yeah. Hang on, you just want to talk to it?”

“To what, to Marzanna?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah. I’m not fucking Western Union.” Jackson sits down on the edge of the bed. A little quiver runs through him, and then when he looks up, his eyes are pure white. Derek gives an involuntary little growl at this, and Stiles edges a little closer to him. Danny doesn’t look thrilled with it either, but he doesn’t look surprised, so apparently he’s seen Jackson do this before. “Jikininki is a very powerful adversary,” Jackson’s voice says, and it’s spooky because there’s _no_ difference from his usual intonation or rhythm even though the word choice is so unlike him. It sounds just like Jackson. “Why are you inquiring after it?”

“Well, somebody summoned it, and we’re not sure why,” Stiles says.

Marzanna/Jackson gives a shrug. “You pays your money – “

“You takes your chances. I know. But someone summoned Jikininki specifically.”

“Interesting,” Marzanna says. “Do you know anything about the organization called Oblivion?”

Stiles and Danny exchange a glance. “Yeah,” Stiles says. “That’s actually part of the problem. They aren’t returning their calls.”

“Fascinating.” There’s a long moment of silence before Marzanna says, “Yes, I will help you. Jikininki will be vulnerable on this mortal plane and with my host’s assistance, I will consume it.”

The phrase makes Stiles shudder a little, but from what he knows about demons, that’s the way they are. The exist to fight and grow and gain energy, and they do it by metaphysically eating their spoils. “Great,” he says. “What can you tell me?”

“Jikininki entered a deal with a mortal several decades ago,” Marzanna says. “A powerful warlock, or so I would assume. A weak soul would have been consumed immediately. I believe their partnership lasted a little over five years before another warlock banished Jikininki.”

“Any idea why?”

Marzanna gives Jackson’s shoulders a shrug. “Warlocks fight for the same reasons demons do. Power, territory, boredom. The defeated warlock was sent to Oblivion.”

“Why wasn’t he killed?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you know his name?”

“I do not.”

Stiles sighs. It’s not very much to go on. He’s about to say something else when Jackson’s body gives a little shiver and his eyes return to their normal color. “You’re thinking that Stone was involved in this, yeah?” he says, and Stiles nods. “Okay, hang on.” He gets up and goes into his trunk. “The bastard kept almost everything in code, and there are a few verses I hadn’t figured out yet. I think this is one of them.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, waiting while Jackson flips through the book.

“Okay, here we go,” Jackson says. “This is one of the first verses in the book, so it’s hard to match it up to events from back then. Here’s what the pretentious motherfucker wrote: ‘Just like Icarus, wandering into the sky, but I am the sun’.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “God, I’m glad that guy is dead,” he mutters, and Jackson gives a snort.

“So he thought that the warlock was over-reaching and needed to be taught a lesson,” Stiles says, nodding. “That sounds like Stone.”

“There’s a second verse, though, and it’s more cryptic,” Jackson says. “ ‘Demon in a shell, created but not destroyed, can you hold your shape?’” Jackson scowls and says, “The fuck is that, even?”

“Created but not destroyed,” Derek says, looking up. “Sounds like a reference to thermodynamics. Energy can’t be created or destroyed. Demons are creatures of energy, right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “I’m not sure about the rest of it, though. Jesus, that guy’s fascination with haikus is annoying. Can’t he just write neat instructions for people?” He shakes his head.

Jackson shrugs. “So the most likely explanation is that this warlock, whoever he is, wants to hook up with his demon again. And he’s managed to escape from Oblivion and they’re all busy looking for him, or maybe he blew it up on his way out or something.”

“That’d be my first guess, yeah,” Stiles says, “but we know who summoned Jikininki, and it wasn’t him. It was, uh, someone else.” He sees Jackson’s unimpressed face, and hedges. He doesn’t know how Jackson would react to the news that Sebastian Stone had a daughter, that there’s another one of his students running around creating havoc. “Sorry. Need to know only, at least for now.”

Jackson waves this aside. “Sure, whatever. So why would this mystery person summon up Jikininki?”

“To go after Oblivion, I guess,” Stiles says.

“Okay, but . . . why?” Jackson asks, and Stiles blinks at him. “Look, you’re thinking about this all wrong. You’re not thinking about it like a demon, you’re thinking about it like a human. You assume that Jikininki will go after his long-lost partner. But it won’t. It doesn’t have any reason to. Demons don’t form attachments.”

“Not even Marzanna?” Danny asks, shifting uneasily.

“Dude, no,” Jackson says. “That’s not how it works. Do you understand how _old_ these things are? Marzanna respects me, but if I kicked the bucket tomorrow, by next month it will have forgotten all about me.”

Stiles thinks about their adventures in Faerieland, about Peter saying ‘nobody forgets like a faerie’. He’ll have to try to remember to apply a similar mindset to demons. “Well, _someone_ went after Oblivion.”

“But you don’t actually know that it has anything to do with this demon, do you?” Jackson asks.

At this, Stiles grimaces. “No, I guess I don’t. Just the timing. A demon with connections to Oblivion gets summoned up the day before they stop answering their phones. It seems like it _has_ to be the reason, but it could just be a red herring. It’s the sort of thing that – Moriarty – would do.”

“Moriarty?” Jackson arches an eyebrow, his voice dripping disdain. “This is the same prick who was giving Eli Whitaker orders?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, as Derek gives a little shudder, remembering that misadventure. “Maybe she’s just keeping us all busy running around after this demon while she takes on Oblivion personally. She’d have the juice, I think.”

“Well, where the hell does that leave us?” Derek asks.

“Nowhere fucking helpful,” Stiles says, with a sigh. “I guess we’ll head back to San Mateo and see what the others have managed to figure out.”

“Let me grab some stuff,” Jackson says.

“You’re coming with?” Stiles asks.

Jackson scowls at him. “If you don’t want me to, just say so.”

Stiles lifts his hands in surrender. “I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t going to ask. You have classes and shit. This isn’t your problem.”

Jackson grunts and says, “When you get in trouble, eventually it’s everyone’s fuckin’ problem.”

“True,” Stiles says, then adds pensively, “I feel like I should apologize, except I really don’t think it’s actually my fault. I mean, Moriarty is after me because . . . reasons, that I couldn’t prevent.” After a moment, he says, “Everything is Kate Argent’s fault.”

Derek snorts, but doesn’t disagree. “I’ll get our plane tickets.”

“First class, I hope,” Jackson says.

“You’re a snob,” Danny tells him cheerfully.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, there's some discussion of rape in this chapter when people are talking about Sally's possible origins. Take care of yourself, y'all! <3

Stiles is greeted in San Mateo with a big heap of nothing. The information that they’ve been able to gather on the demon is sketchy, the sort of exaggerated myth and legend that isn’t at all related to reality. Some of the hunters have been willing to share the information, but a lot of them haven’t kept very good track of people they’ve sent away. Even the Archive doesn’t have detailed records of all the people who have been sent to Oblivion. There are some potential candidates, but nobody that leaps out at Stiles specifically.

Similarly in the vein of things that are completely unhelpful, Gwen left Stiles a message while he was on the plane saying she had been to Oblivion’s California facility and everything seemed normal there. All the residents were still there and there had been no disturbances. She had talked to the staff and most of the residents and didn’t think that any of them were the person that had been working with Jikininki.

Of course, there are still six other Oblivion facilities to got through. But it’s Lorelei and Naomi who are missing. Stiles feels like it must be connected – unless Jikininki is a red herring. Maybe the sorcerer it had worked with was in some Oblivion facility on the other side of the country, but Sally herself was going after the people she knew that Stiles would call.

“Doesn’t anyone have any good news?” he groans at the ceiling.

“Since you ask,” Mac says, and grins at him. “I found Lorelei.”

“What!” Stiles sits bolt upright. “How? Where?”

“Well,” Mac amends, “I found out which Lorelei we’re looking for. I don’t actually have a location. But you know, it actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Because all but one of the Lorelei Whites had DMV records, and so there were photos. That only left the one. Which might not mean anything, really, since we didn’t know if Lorelei White is actually her real name. But guess what – Lorelei White, born in 1977 and raised in Santa Fe, has a sister named Naomi White.”

“Damn, so that’s _got_ to be the one we’re looking for,” Stiles says. “Way too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

“Of course, just figuring out which Lorelei we’re looking for maybe doesn’t get us as far as you’re hoping,” Mac says. “Because there’s hardly any information on her in the system. No home address, no phone records, no driver’s license number. Lorelei is a dead end. Naomi, on the other hand, is not! She has a driver’s license, a credit card, a day job, and most interestingly, a missing persons report.”

“Shit,” Stiles says. “Really?”

“Yeah. Her boss filed it. She works as an administrative assistant at a law firm. When she didn’t show up for two days and wasn’t answering her phone, her boss called the police. Your dad got the report for me. According to everyone who knows her, it’s very unlike her. But there are virtually no leads. Her cell phone was still in her apartment. Car was parked in the parking lot. No forced entry, no jealous ex-boyfriends . . .”

“But if her cell phone was in her apartment – “

“Then we can get her phone records,” Mac says, nodding. “Yup. Your dad’s working on it as we speak.”

“Sweet,” Stiles says. “At least that’s a place to start. And to be honest, I’d rather start there than banging my head against a demonic wall. I’m still not convinced that this demon has anything to do with what’s going on.”

“Is the demon even our problem?” Isaac speaks up from where the rest of the pack has been watching. “Shouldn’t that be something the Druidic Council takes care of?”

Stiles glances at Scott, who says, “Deaton was going to look into it, yeah. But they don’t have very good way to track demons. I mean, they work on an entirely different wavelength than human sorcerers. He said he had talked to a couple people on that side of the country and they were going to see what they could do.”

“That’ll have to do for now, at least,” Stiles says.

“Why can’t you just go after the sorcerer?” Jackson asks. “I mean, the way you were talking about her, you’ve figured out who she is, so . . .”

“I don’t think . . .” Stiles cuts himself off and sighs. “Yeah, okay, this ‘need to know’ thing isn’t going to work out. Moriarty is a woman named Sally Stoddard. To start off with, she’s the adopted daughter of a big time hunter, which makes anything I try to do against her likely to start a war. Secondly . . . she’s the biological daughter of Sebastian Stone.”

“That prick had a _kid_?” Jackson says. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Yeah. She’s a year younger than us and spent most of her childhood with him whispering sweet nothings to her, so she’s just as twisted,” Stiles says. “And maybe even more powerful. It’s hard to say because it’s rare that she actually takes a swipe at us directly. The magic she did against Chris is really the only thing we’ve seen her do so far.”

Derek leans in to nuzzle at Stiles’ ear and says, “And the magic in the desert. When she made the stone box.”

“Right, that too,” Stiles says.

Jackson shakes his head. “Who’s her mother?”

“I have no idea, actually,” Stiles says. “She didn’t say anything about it when I met her. Hard to imagine Stone having a girlfriend.”

“It probably wasn’t consensual,” Lydia says crisply. “We know magic like that can be done.”

Jackson nods and only flinches a little. “Yeah, Stone taught me that spell specific. I mean, I asked for it, but it wasn’t like he had to go look it up. He seems like the type who’d rather mind-whammy a girl rather than actually finding one who was willing to put up with his winning personality. Anyway, it probably doesn’t matter in the long run. I was just curious.”

Stiles nods. “Well, while Deaton is trying to round up some magical posse to find the demon, we’re going to focus on finding Lorelei and/or Naomi. Let’s get those phone records and go from there.”

“You can do that,” Jackson says. “I can see if I can track the demon at all.” Several of the others turn to look at him, and he gives a shrug. “Look, sorcerers and Druids have a hard time tracking a demon. But they can sense each other, you know. Marzanna says that since there are only a few on our plane of existence, they stand out.”

“Do you have a distance limit?” Stiles asks.

Jackson shrugs. “I dunno. I’ve never tried to do it before.”

“Well, give it a whirl,” Stiles says. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Got a quiet space I can use?” Jackson asks.

“I’ll show you the library,” Lydia says, gesturing for him to follow.

While Jackson gets to work, Stiles stands up and goes into the bedroom to call his father. “Hey. Mac says you’re getting some phone records for me. What else have you got?”

“It’s a damned strange case,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “Actually, it reminds me some of what happened to Rose and Henry Argent. It’s like this Naomi White walked out of her apartment one day and vanished into thin air.”

“When was the last time anyone saw her?”

“Leaving work on Monday night,” Tom says. “Since her car’s at home, everyone assumes that she got there. But then sometime between getting home Monday and not showing up to work on Tuesday, she vanished. Now, police are theorizing that she might have been involved in some criminal enterprise, because she had two phones, one of which was an unregistered cell phone. From what you’ve told me, that probably has something to do with her work with Oblivion, not with anything criminal, so we’ll let them worry about that. But that’s not the weirdest part.”

“Oh, geez,” Stiles says.

“Naomi White,” Tom says, “was paraplegic.”

Stiles blinks. “What? In a wheelchair?”

“Yeah. Skiing accident when she was thirteen, severed her spine somewhere in the lumbar region. She’s been in a wheelchair ever since. Now, she lived alone, was completely independent. Her car was specially modified to have hand operated controls.”

“You’re going to tell me that her wheelchair was still in the apartment, aren’t you,” Stiles says.

“Yep,” Tom replies.

Stiles sits down and pushes a hand through his hair. Gwen hadn’t mentioned Naomi being paraplegic, but then to be fair, she probably figured that it was none of Stiles’ business. Until Naomi had turned up missing, it wasn’t relevant. “So she literally couldn’t have just walked away,” he says, “but no sign of forced entry. Security cameras?”

“One in the front lobby that saw nothing of interest. The residents of the building had parking in the garage – “

“Where did all this happen, by the way?”

“Sacramento,” Tom says. “Elevator went down into the garage and Naomi had a handicapped space right near it. No cameras in the garage or elevator. Basically, it would have been very easy for someone to leave through the back with her. The fact that her wheelchair was in her apartment, not in the garage, suggests that she made it back up to her apartment and wasn’t accosted in the garage.”

“What about other people who lived there?”

“Canvas turned up nothing,” Tom says. “If someone physically carried her down to the garage, nobody saw it. But this wasn’t a huge complex. It’s a building with eighteen apartments. It would have been relatively easy to get out unseen, especially if it was done at night. But it does make a struggle less likely.”

“Yeah, but when magic is involved . . .” Stiles grimaces. “Eli Whitaker walked right through our electric fence.”

“I remember, trust me,” Tom says. “Not going to forget that disaster any time soon.  But I don’t think a sorcerer could make somebody be able to walk again.”

“No, but a lot of them have telekinetic ability,” Stiles says, remembering Jennifer Blake flinging things around. “Easy enough to just move someone around with that. Shit, this whole thing is weird. Anything useful on the phone records?”

“Not really. Naomi had friends and coworkers, places she called like take-out restaurants and a pharmacy. That’s all on her regular cell phone. Then the other one has some numbers that she received occasional calls from that are unregistered. She never dialed out to those numbers. In fact, she rarely called out on that cell phone at all.”

“Calls from Lorelei or from the Oblivion facility itself, maybe,” Stiles says. “They seem to use unregistered numbers for most of their business.”

“Right. Like I said. Not very helpful. I’ve tried calling all of them, but nobody ever answers.”

Stiles sighs. “Okay. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to come at it from that angle, but keep digging. Let me know if anything pops.” He says goodbye to his father and heads back out into the main apartment, looking for Jackson. He’s settled into the library with Danny and Wilma, and opened the windows all the way. Stiles shivers involuntarily. March in California isn’t known for warmth, but the air around Jackson feels particularly cold. Danny looks up as Stiles approaches, and puts a finger over his mouth to gesture that he should be quiet. Stiles doesn’t want to interrupt and cause an explosion, so he sits down and waits, tapping on his phone and thinking.

After what seems like an eternity, Jackson opens his eyes and says, “No demons here. Well, you know. Except Marzanna.”

“What’s ‘here’, exactly?” Stiles asks.

“I don’t know. Couple hundred mile radius, maybe?” Jackson shrugs. “But the thing is, Marzanna doesn’t think one was summoned at all.”

“Meaning what?” Danny asks.

“Look, Deaton said that he felt a surge of dark power or something, right?” Jackson says, and Stiles nods. “But that could be a lot of different things. So they went to check it out and found the summoning circle and Jikininki’s name, blah, blah. So everyone’s assuming that Jikininki was summoned. But I don’t think it was. I think this whole thing is a wild goose chase. Marzanna said that when a demon is summoned, it can feel it, like – vibrations in the ground, maybe. But it didn’t feel anything this time.”

“So maybe it’s all one big ruse,” Stiles says, mulling it over. “I guess you might as well go back to Denver, then.”

“Maybe,” Jackson says. “Marzanna’s pissed. It thought it was gonna get a meal and now it isn’t. So maybe I’ll hang out a little longer, see if there are any good eats.”

“Dude, that’s disturbing,” Danny says. Stiles shakes his head and goes back into the apartment.

Derek falls into step next to him. “Do you think we can trust Marzanna?” he asks quietly.

Stiles thinks about it. “Yeah,” he says. “Marzanna’s motivation is to find a demon and eat it. She – _it_ – doesn’t have any reason to lie about there not being one anywhere near here. If there was, it’d probably be harassing Jackson to go get a nibble. So yeah, if Marzanna says a demon wasn’t summoned, I believe it.”

“So Sally is doing her own dirty work,” Derek says.

“Yeah. Wait, no.” Stiles stops walking and frowns suddenly. “She can’t be. She called me – we traced the call. She was calling me from New York. And that was after Naomi had disappeared. Sally can’t be holding her, not unless she got her across the country somehow. Or can teleport.”

“What about that thing they can do, where they can open a Way?” Derek asks.

“I don’t think those can cover that much distance,” Stiles says. “The one the Falcon opened only went about ten miles. Eli’s was even less than that. I don’t think it’s possible to open a way between California and New York. Guess I’ll ask Deaton, though.”

He gives the Druid a call, and Deaton confirms that most sorcerers can only open a very short way, anywhere between fifty feet and at the most, fifteen miles. “Between planes of existence, it’s different, of course,” he says, “but as you saw when you went to Faerie, even I find it difficult. Sally, though . . . it’s almost impossible to say what she can and can’t do. She’s almost certainly more powerful than Sebastian.”

“Why?” Stiles asks, curious.

“Because she was raised without limits. Remember the spells that you can do to unlock the power inside yourself?” Deaton asks, and Stiles nods. “Over time, we lock down our own power. Due to fear, to rejection, to failure – but Sally has never experienced any of those things. She can use her full potential, every molecule of power she possesses – and that is a very, very dangerous thing.”

“Great,” Stiles says, and sighs. “We haven’t seen her do much.”

“No,” Deaton agrees, “but the spell done on Chris Argent was extremely powerful. A lesser man wouldn’t have required such a strong spell, but to corrupt Chris like that . . .”

“Nnnrg,” Stiles agrees. “So we have no idea what Sally can do.”

“No. And I certainly agree that it’s possible she could match a nephilim in terms of power. She would probably be very good at making Ways if Sebastian taught her how to do it, because he was quite good at it himself.”

Stiles thinks back to Sebastian Stone’s unnerving habit of suddenly appearing in rooms where he hadn’t previously been, and scowls. “Across the country, though?”

“All I’m saying is that anything’s possible,” Deaton says.

Stiles sighs. “Okay,” he says, and hangs up. “I hate the fact that magic makes anything possible,” he remarks to Derek. “It makes it damned difficult to rule shit out.”

Derek gives a snort. “Maybe someone can get eyes on Sally,” he says.

“Who? We’re not exactly on friendly terms with anyone in the Stoddard family.”

“No, but we know other hunters over there,” Derek says. “Didn’t Jim Stoddard say he would help Wednesday out if she needed anything? Maybe we could call Wednesday and have her go up there, see if she can find her.”

“Wednesday’s probably got enough on her plate right now,” Stiles says, “but I’ll keep it in mind.” He heads back outside and says to Jackson, “How far away can you build a Way to?”

“Why, where are you trying to go?” Jackson asks.

“Nowhere. It’s an academic question.”

“I’ve never really tested it,” Jackson says.

Danny elbows him in the ribs. “Didn’t you build one from Denver back to Beacon Hills so you could be home on Tanya’s birthday?”

“What? Shut up!” Jackson scowls at him. Then he rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay. That’s the furthest I’ve ever done. It was a bit of a stretch, but not so much that I really felt it. I wouldn’t have wanted to try to put anyone else through it, though. It’s a lot easier to make a Way when you’re only worrying about yourself.”

“Interesting,” Stiles says, mulling this over. He’s a little startled when his phone rings, and glances down to see Jake’s name on the screen. “Hey, what’s up?”

“I think I have a lead,” Jake says. He’s businesslike and confident, and Stiles allows a grin to crack his face. Jake has changed a lot since Chris had adopted him, and Stiles enjoys knowing that he’d had a part in it. “I’ve been going through the Archives, and I think I might have found the name of the sorcerer you’re looking for. I sort of narrowed it down through reports of where Sebastian Stone had been at certain times and – you probably don’t care.”

“No, I absolutely care, because you’re amazing at what you do, and when I have more time you can tell me all about how you did it, but it can wait,” Stiles says. “What’d you find?”

“Okay, there’s this sorcerer named Cameron Marley,” Jake says. “Any warlock powerful enough to summon a demon probably caused a bunch of problems, right? So this guy Marley was active from 1988 through 1992, and he was from Iowa. I guess there’s not much to do in Iowa, so he got into sorcery and started using it to get anything he wanted. He became a politician and it’s suspected he had his fingers in, like, every illegal pie. But then in the winter of 1992, right before he was supposed to take office in the state legislature, he disappeared.”

“Huh,” Stiles says. “Okay. Interesting.”

“Yeah. One of the guys who works on the Archive is from Winchester land originally, so I had him give Hannah Winchester a call and ask her if she remembered what had happened. I mean, this was twenty years ago, but if there was a demon involved, I thought it might have made an impression. But Hannah said she’s only ever seen two warlocks with demons, and neither of them were this guy.”

“Because Stone banished the demon before the Winchesters got to him,” Stiles surmised.

“Yeah. But she said she has used Oblivion several times and she does specifically remember at least one sorcerer in that time frame that she said had gone nuts on power and basically imploded. She was going to call her contact with Oblivion to see if she could confirm.”

“Awesome,” Stiles says. “Keep me posted.”

“Okay, will do,” Jake says, and hangs up.

Derek is frowning slightly. “Do you think Hannah will be able to get in touch with anyone at Oblivion? We still don’t know if any of the other branches are in trouble.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Stiles says. “If she can, maybe they can track down Lorelei for us.” He’s frowning, rubbing a hand through his hair as he thinks all this over. “But if it was really some sorcerer from Iowa that Stone bumped into twenty years ago, and he was captured by the Winchesters and given to that branch of Oblivion, then I don’t see how the demon can have anything to do with Naomi’s disappearance. And/or Lorelei’s, if she really is missing and not just unaware of what’s going on.”

Derek nods. “Sally’s playing two hands at once. Which do we focus on?”

“I’m not sure. I mean . . .” Stiles trails off. “I want to focus on Naomi’s disappearance. I mean, that seems like where we should focus our attention, because we need Oblivion. But at the same time, a demon being on the loose is bad, obviously, and sorcerers have trouble fighting demons, so Jackson might be the only chance anyone has.”

“So send Jackson over to Deaton to go find the demon,” Derek says.

“We can’t,” Stiles says. “The Druidic Council thinks they’ve banished Marzanna.”

“Do you really think Deaton’s that stupid?” Derek asks.

“Maybe not,” Stiles says, then shakes his head. “No, definitely not. But this is one of Deaton’s weird little lines. If he doesn’t _know_ that Marzanna’s still here – if he isn’t presented with any evidence of it – he can pretend he doesn’t know.”

“Plausible deniability,” Derek says.

“Deaton being Deaton,” Stiles agrees. “So we’ll focus on both. And see which one we get a lead on first.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Twenty-four hours pass without a single lead being generated, and they’re coming up on the weekend. Stiles decides to head back to Beacon Hills, and swing by Sacramento on his way. “You can’t call it ‘swinging by’ when it’s an hour and a half out of our way,” Derek points out, and Stiles shrugs, because what’s another hour and a half when he’s got midterms in a week anyway.

Jackson comes with him, so Danny decides to tag along too, but the rest of the pack is going straight back. They’ll spend some time with their families and meet at the den after dinner. Stiles lets Derek drive so he can do some of his school work, while Jackson sits in the back and tries not to gripe too loudly. Stiles also calls ahead to his father. “So what are the odds that you can get me into the crime scene?” he asks.

“Technically, there is no crime scene, because the Sacramento PD has yet to find evidence that a crime was actually committed,” Tom replies. “But before you decide to just let yourself in, let me call a few of my contacts to see what I can do.”

“How do you have so many contacts?” Stiles asks. “I mean, lately every time something comes up, you’re just like ‘let me call a guy’.”

“This from you?” Tom asks.

“Well, my contacts are weird and supernatural,” Stiles says. “So it makes sense. But yours are like . . . official people. Authority figures. Official . . . authorities.”

“Stop talking,” Tom tells him.

“Yes, sir.”

“Somewhat ironically, I owe most of it to Agent McCall,” Tom says. “I mean, the FBI headhunters came knocking a little while after the original debacle with Sebastian Stone, and I told them I wasn’t interested. Then there was all that garbage with Neptune. But, after all the shit McCall stirred up, I met a bunch of other people. Turns out ol’ Rafael wasn’t a popular guy, and I seem to have accrued a small fan club by getting him put in the hot seat.”

Stiles chortles. “He’d shit a brick if he knew.”

“Oh, yeah, absolutely,” Tom says. “Anyway, let me call ‘my guy’ in Sacramento.”

Stiles says okay and goes back to his books. By the time they reached Sacramento, it’s all been set up. A plainclothes detective meets them at the apartment complex and lets them in. “Not much to see,” he says.

“I’m not too concerned about what’s to be seen,” Stiles says. His father had told him that the detective is in the know about supernatural business, so he’s not surprised to see that Derek is basically sniffing everything. But even that’s not really why Stiles wanted to come.

Jackson sits down in the center of the living room with Wilma in his lap. Stiles half-expects him to meditate for another half hour, but his eyes snap back open almost immediately. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “ _Major_ mojo.”

“Recent?”

“Within the last week. I don’t think it was more recent than that.” Jackson absently scratches behind Wilma’s ears. “It’s dark as hell, but it’s not demonic.”

Stiles chews on his lower lip, thinking this over. “If you had felt someone’s . . . aura? Should we call it an aura?” he asks, and Jackson shrugs. “If you had felt it before, would you recognize it?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Jackson says. “Remember that first thing Stone did, with the voodoo doll? Deaton recognized the, the feel of the magic, but he said it wasn’t the same. It had changed. Your aura changes a lot more than your looks do. Like, if you saw a guy once and then again ten years later, he might have gotten a haircut or some wrinkles but he’d still basically look the same. Auras aren’t like that. They change day to day with your mood and shit.”

Stiles sighs. “I was hoping we’d be able to tell if it was Sally, but I guess you’ve never felt her aura before anyway.”

“Yeah, I have,” Jackson says, and Stiles looks at him in surprise. “Only for a second. When she killed Eli.”

“She didn’t use magic to do that,” Derek says.

“Not technically, but . . .” Jackson waves his hand. “I don’t know as much about this because I didn’t start doing magic ‘til I was sixteen, right? Even Deaton didn’t start until he was eleven or so. But I’ve heard some people talk about it – people who started really young – they talk about it like it’s a sixth sense. They’re literally using magic all the time and they don’t even know it. They experience the world through their magic. And Sally might have killed Eli with a gun, but she used magic in that moment.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “And?”

“And this wasn’t her. At least, I don’t think it was. Like I said, it’s not an exact science.”

“Super,” Stiles says. “So Sally has an accomplice. Whoever that is showed up here and somehow got Naomi out of here without taking her wheelchair, and without making a noise. And let’s not forget that if Lorelei and Naomi are siblings, then Naomi is a nephilim too, which means she probably didn’t go easily.”

“So where does this get us?” Danny asks.

“Nowhere useful,” Stiles says. He thanks the detective and tells him that he’ll keep in touch if they find anything, and pile back into the car. He stares up at the ceiling of the Jeep, trying to put the pieces together. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t make the demon-that-might-or-might-not-be fit alongside Naomi’s disappearance.

“Okay, here’s a question,” he says, after almost half an hour of driving in silence. “Can you summon a demon that’s already been summoned?”

Jackson looks up with a pensive expression that looks somewhat strange on him. “Yes and no,” he says. “If they have a contract with someone, I don’t think you can. But I see what you’re getting at. If we actually tried summoning Jikininki from the demon plane, and it showed up, then we would know that Sally hadn’t summoned it previously.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says.

“Problem being,” Jackson says, “that I can’t do it. Because I’ve already got Marzanna in my pocket.”

“Does it matter?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah. It won’t show if doesn’t think it’s going to get a human to munch on. But,” he adds, “we could maybe do a spell to track Jikininki by name.”

“That’s different from looking by, like, aura, or whatever it was you were doing earlier?” Danny asks.

“Yeah. See, when you do tracking spells for people, you look for their body, you use hair or blood or whatever,” Jackson says. “But demons are creatures of energy. They don’t have any of that. All they have is their soul, which means that they have Names. You guys have dealt with Faeries, right?” he asks, and Stiles nods. “And you know the whole thing about never letting a Faerie know your name? Like, your full name?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Actually I weaseled out of a problem with a faerie once because she couldn’t pronounce my real name.”

“That’s because faeries can do magic directly on the soul,” Jackson says. “Anyway, my point is, if you’re going to do magic on a demon, if you’re suicidal enough to even try it, you need their name. That’s how Sally was able to specifically summon Jikininki in the first place – because she knew its name.”

“Okay, but we don’t,” Stiles says.

“No, but if Deaton got pictures of the summoning spell, it’ll be there,” Jackson says. “And then, if it’s on this plane of existence, I ought to be able to find it.”

“And if it’s involved at all in Naomi’s disappearance, we might to be able to find her,” Stiles says, and nods. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little short but I couldn't resist the ending, sorry. =D

 

The good thing about searching for the demon by name, Jackson says, is that he can locate it anywhere on the globe. That makes Stiles a little nervous, if only because it’s solid evidence of exactly how powerful Jackson is. But he keeps his mouth shut. Jackson doesn’t want to do the spell until that night, so he keeps himself busy with other things until then. When he has time on his hands, he might as well study.

“It’s not close,” is what Jackson says, as soon as he’s done, watching the pendulum he’s made swing gently over the map. “We’re going to have some driving to do.”

“Any way to tell how far?” Stiles asks, and Jackson shrugs. “East?” he adds, and Jackson nods. “Should’ve stayed in Denver.”

“Cry about it,” Jackson says, focused on the spell.

“The spell wouldn’t react if the demon were still on its own plane of existence, right?” Derek asks, and Jackson nods. “So Sally did summon it.”

“Well, someone did,” Jackson says, “but it’s impossible to say who or when. All we can say for sure is that it got over here somehow. Still, you’re probably right. Maybe Sally just had some way of doing it that prevented Marzanna from feeling it. Who knows? From what you’ve told me about her, she can probably do a whole bunch of things that none of us are thrilled about.”

Stiles excuses himself to call his father and give him a quick update on the situation. Tom is understandably unhappy that Stiles is going to leave California to track down a demon. “Look, if all goes well, I won’t even have to do anything,” Stiles says. “Jackson and Marzanna will take care of the dirty work and then I’ll just fly Naomi home and we’ll be fine.”

“Don’t jinx yourself, son,” Tom says. “Call and check in every hour.”

“Okay, Dad,” Stiles says. He finds the pack gathered in the living room. “Okay, so, I know that you guys have mid-terms coming up, and – ”

“And absolutely nobody is staying behind while you take off with Jackson to go demon-hunting,” Lydia says crisply.

Stiles makes a face at her. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t actually going to suggest that. I’m just trying to figure out which cars we’re going to take and how to do this as easily as possible. The more drivers we have, the better time we can make, but there’s no way we can fit in two cars unless we start buying school buses like Vanessa Nazario.”

“Car rental was invented for a reason,” Scott says.

“I don’t think that reason was ‘werewolf pack transportation,’” Allison says, elbowing him in the ribs and smiling at him.

“It’s too late for any rental places to be open, and I want to leave now,” Stiles says.

“Let me call my mom,” Boyd says. “She bought a minivan when her old station wagon broke down last year. If she’ll let me borrow it, then we can take that.”

“Sweet,” Stiles says, as Boyd takes his phone out of the room. “Allison, think your dad will let us borrow his SUV?”

“If he finds out we’re going demon hunting, he might insist on being the one who drives it,” Allison says. “But I don’t think we’ll need it, will be? There’s eleven of us, plus Wilma. If the mini-van seats six or seven, the rest of us will fit in my car, or in the Jeep.”

“Yeah, okay,” Stiles says, thinking it over. If he takes the Jeep along with Jackson, Derek, and one or two others, the rest of them can squish into a mini-van. Boyd comes back in a minute later and gives him the thumbs up. Stiles dispatches Boyd and Isaac to pick up the mini-van from Boyd’s house. Everyone starts packing things up. Allison insists on bringing a quarter of the armory even though, in theory, there shouldn’t be any fighting for them to do. Stiles has no problem with that. Despite what he had said to his father, he has no idea if the demon will have any sort of defenses employed.

“Okay, guys,” he says, once everyone is ready. “Let’s roll.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

They’ve been in the car for less than an hour when Jackson starts bitching. “We’re going too far south,” he says. “We need to head east.”

“Look,” Stiles says, “I don’t control the interstates. You can’t go due east out of Beacon Hills. There are fucking mountains there.”

“Okay, well, don’t complain to me when we’ve gone way too far south,” Jackson retorts.

Stiles lifts his gaze to the sky and prays for patience, wondering why he ever thought it was a good idea to spend time in a car with Jackson. He might be a good guy now, but he still pisses Stiles off about eighty percent of the time. “Look, you asshole, when I get to I-40 we’ll be heading due east, but you’ve gotta let me get there.”

“We could’ve taken I-80,” Jackson says.

“Then we just would’ve ended up too far north! We’ll take 99 down to 58 in Bakersfield. Scott’s grandmother lives in Barstow and he’s done that drive a hundred times. We can get on I-40 in Barstow – “

“And then we’ll be too far south, but going due east,” Jackson snipes.

“I can’t do anything about fucking mountains!” Stiles reiterates. “If we’re really that far south when we get to Barstow we can hop on I-15 instead and go up through Vegas and into Utah and then get on I-70. I know what I’m doing!”

“That’ll just lead you to Denver, and trust me, I know the quickest way to Denver and this isn’t it – “

“Bullshit, you’ve never driven to Denver, you just hop on a plane – “

“Oh my God, I’m going to club both of you over the head and start driving myself,” Derek growls from the backseat. “Stiles, shut up and drive. Jackson, shut up and let Stiles drive.”

Jackson scowls and settles into a quiet sulk. When they get to Barstow five hours later, Jackson rechecks the spell and sullenly admits that maybe they’re not _that_ much further south than they need to be. They stop for gas and drinks and Stiles switches out with Derek, who drives in silence while Stiles sleeps in the back with Wilma’s head in his lap. In fact, he’s surprised at how soundly he falls asleep, and wakes up when the car slows to a stop.

“Where are we?” he asks, yawning widely.

“Flagstaff,” Derek says. “We’re stopping for gas and to swap out. You can keep sleeping. Allison’s going to drive the next leg.”

“Mmkay,” Stiles says, but goes inside to use the bathroom at the gas station. “How much further?” he asks Jackson.

Jackson makes an annoyed noise. “Not sure. We’ve gone maybe a third of the way? Still don’t have a pronounced tilt.”

“Great,” Stiles says. They’ve been driving for ten hours, so that makes they’ve got another twenty or so ahead of them. He wonders whose territory they’re going to end up on, and closes his eyes, trying to picture the map he’s made with all the hunters and werewolf packs’ territories staked out. Winchester territory, probably, but he won’t know about the werewolf pack until they get closer.

He curls up in the back and starts studying for his sociology mid-term while Allison drives. They stop for breakfast in a little town in New Mexico and then it’s Stiles’ turn to drive again.

“We _are_ going to have to angle north at some point,” Jackson says, a little less obnoxiously than before.

“Angle? Or turn?” Stiles asks, thinking of taking I-25 out of Albuquerque.

“Just angle,” Jackson says, so Stiles pulls out his atlas and finds a road that they can take up through the handle of Oklahoma and into Kansas. That’s definitely going to be Winchester territory, then; they have the entire Midwest.

“Think that’s going to be a problem?” he asks Allison.

“I think that I should call my dad and have him call Hannah Winchester,” Allison says, “but as long as she’s notified and we don’t try to sneak around under her nose, she won’t care.”

Stiles nods. “Okay,” he says, and gets behind the wheel. He puts on The Rolling Stones and sings along as he drives. He’s so into it that he doesn’t hear Allison’s phone ring, and doesn’t notice she’s taking a call until she reaches up and starts smacking his arm. Then he fumbles at the stereo to turn it down.

“ – okay,” she’s saying. “Yeah, okay. Thanks. Love you.” She taps her phone to end the call and says, “Okay. Dad has talked to Hannah Winchester and cleared us being on her territory, as long as we don’t, and I quote, make trouble.”

“How likely is that?” Stiles asks.

“Well, there’s trouble and then there’s _trouble_ ,” Allison says. “She knows we’re going after a demon that might or might not be involved with Oblivion, so she probably won’t be surprised if she hears a siren or two. Let’s just try not to blow up any buildings wholesale, and we’ll probably be all right. But, that’s not all. Apparently Hannah was able to get in touch with their contact at Oblivion. She confirmed that Cameron Marley was indeed in their care, has been for twenty years.”

“Does that actually help us at all?” Derek asks.

Stiles gives a one-shouldered shrug. “It might. If we can confirm that Cameron Marley is the sorcerer in question, we know who the demon is looking for. Or presumably looking for. If the demon has been summoned at all.” He waves this aside. “And if Hannah can get in touch with her contact at Oblivion, maybe she can help us find Naomi or something. Presuming that Jikininki doesn’t have her, or we can’t find Jikininki.”

“Well, Dad asked Hannah to tell her contact that Lorelei and Naomi are MIA, so why can’t we let them handle the whole mess?” Allison asks.

“After driving all this way?” Stiles gives a shrug. He doesn’t want to talk about the real reason, which is that this is his fault. Sally is doing this because of _him_. Oblivion wouldn’t be in trouble if Sally wasn’t trying to screw with him, so that makes it his problem. And if he’s dependent on Oblivion’s good will to get Jonas taken care of, then he doesn’t want to dump problems in their lap and then walk away. “Besides, I’m still pretty sure that those are two entirely separate issues. If Hannah’s Oblivion contact starts looking for Naomi, that’s great. We’re looking for Jikininki.”

They drive several more hours in silence except for the music. They’re about an hour away from Wichita when Jackson says, “We’re getting close.”

“Thank God,” Stiles says, and groans. “Let’s find a hotel, get something to eat, and then reconnoiter.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“I have to admit that this is not what I expected,” Stiles says.

They had parked at a Holiday Inn in a Wichita suburb and gotten a couple of rooms to share. Stiles didn’t want to take the Jeep or Boyd’s mother’s car wherever they were going, in case of cameras or police or other general unpleasantness. But Jackson couldn’t build a Way to somewhere he had never been, so they had done a drive-by. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting – a spooky old mansion, a solid concrete bunker – but a nursing home called ‘The Terraces Retirement Community’ was definitely not it.

It’s a nice looking place, all one building with a small parking lot. It’s one story and made mostly of brick, with some white edging and highlights. There are only a few cars in it, since it’s well past the dinner hour. Presumably, the only people there at this hour were the residents and the staff.

Jackson shrugs, keeps driving, and says, “The magic doesn’t lie. Jikininki is in that building.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. They park a few blocks away. Jackson didn’t want to do any more magic than was absolutely necessary, so Stiles didn’t bother asking him to make them a way. Walking wasn’t a problem. Once the lights of the building came into view, he glances at the others and says, “Isaac, Erica, do a quick scout.”

Both of them nod and strip down, shifting to their wolf forms and trotting off into the darkness. Stiles gathers the clothes and shoves them into his backpack. Jackson is standing with his eyes closed. “They’ve got heavy duty magical defenses,” he says. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Can you break them down?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah, but it won’t be quiet,” Jackson says.

Erica comes jogging back up a minute later and shifts back to her human form. “There’s a security system, but I didn’t see any guards or anything. Which I guess makes sense, given that it’s a nursing home.”

“Not everything is as it seems,” Stiles says. “I’ll admit it’s not exactly what I expected, either, but he’s probably hiding out here. Jackson, can you pin down its location more exactly? If we can go in through a side door or a window, it’ll be a lot easier than trying to go in through the front.”

“Why?” Jackson asks. “Afraid of the little old ladies and the nursing aides you’re going to have to go past?”

“Well, I don’t exactly want to draw attention and wind up with someone calling the cops because I broke into an old folks’ home,” Stiles says, “so yeah.”

Jackson gives a one-shouldered shrug as if to say ‘fair enough’ and starts walking around the building. He watches the pendulum swing as he does a slow circuit of the entire place. Then he does another quarter turn and points to a window. “Right through there,” he says.

Stiles creeps closer to try to look through, but the curtains are closed and he can’t see anything. “Don’t touch the glass,” Jackson hisses. “As soon as anyone touches any part of this building, the security will go off.”

“I’m a little surprised that they don’t have any sort of perimeter alarms,” Stiles says.

“Again, I’d point out that this is a nursing home,” Erica says.

Jackson rolls his eyes at her. “Yeah, and your den is just a house. No, something is off about this place. There’s a lot of supernatural energy around it, in the earth, in the air. It’s weird. I feel like they should know we’re here, but it isn’t reacting to us for some reason.”

“Well, let’s not stand around talking about it all day,” Stiles says, and gestures Jackson forward.

“Whatever,” Jackson says, and moves his hand in a little half circle. He moves it forward and then back, as if testing the waters. Little flashes of frost appear at the tips of his fingers. The air in front of him starts to solidify into a wall of ice. Jackson’s fingers sink into it, the ice moving around them like water. Then, abruptly, the ice shatters. So does the window, and from everywhere around them, a high-pitched screeching noise goes up into the air.

Everyone immediately recoils, clapping their hands over their ears. The ground starts to ripple underneath their feet, throwing them around. The wolves are affected by the sound the most, and Allison is the first to regain her feet and jump through the window. Stiles manages to steady himself a moment later. “Wolves, fall back, get out of range of the noise!” he shouts, because the wolves aren’t going to be able to do anything with that sound piercing their eardrums. But then it abruptly goes silent and still. Snow is falling, thick and heavy, muffling all the noise in the area.

“Come on,” Jackson says, and climbs through the window.

If the nursing home was the last thing Stiles had expected, what’s inside wasn’t on the list either. It’s a small room, and it honestly looks on the inside like it looks on the outside. There’s a bed and a chair and a dresser, a glass of water on the nightstand, a few worn books on a shelf. The pictures on the walls are of generic, inoffensive landscapes.

Stiles remembers the long-term care unit that his mother had been in for the last month of his life, and it was somewhat similar. But all of that takes a second place to the man sitting in the chair by the window. It reminds him somewhat of Peter Hale, back before this all started. He doesn’t have the burn scars, but he does have the same blank, vacant expression. He looks to be in his forties or fifties, not old enough that he would normally be in a nursing home. He doesn’t seem to realize that anyone else is there, and he hasn’t reacted to the noise. There are footsteps going up and down the hallway, and Stiles wants to get out before anyone figures out exactly where the breach is.

“Demon in a shell,” Jackson says, and Stiles’ head jerks around. “Demon in a fucking shell. He didn’t exorcise the God damned demon – he _swapped_ them.”

“Jesus fucking son of a – we have to go, right now, right fucking now,” Stiles says, shoving Allison back out the window the way they came. He doesn’t know exactly what Sebastian Stone had done to the warlock and his demon, or what Sally had done, but he’s starting to put some of the pieces together, and he’s gotten far enough to know that they’re in deep shit.

As they reach the parking lot, he gasps out, “Okay. The good news is, we’ve found Oblivion. The bad news is, someone did in fact attack them. The worst news is, that someone was us.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little on the short side again, sorry. Real life has been kicking my ass, but things are getting back to normal. :)

 

The words have barely left Stiles’ mouth when there’s a crack of thunder and a hole seems to open in reality, right in front of the nursing home. A woman comes out from inside, both feet landing hard on the pavement. She’s tall and willowy, with short blonde hair and glasses, and her body seems unnaturally stiff and straight. Stiles recognizes her from the DMV photo. It’s Naomi White.

The mage must be using telekinesis to control her body, because she’s floating, rather than walking. Her eyes are open, but instead of their normal blue, they’re entirely black. She waves one hand in front of her. A ripple of force comes out of it, and the entire front of the building is torn off. Rubble flies everywhere, and Derek dives on top of Stiles, knocking him to the ground and covering him with his body.

Stiles curses and tries to squirm upwards, holding one hand to shield his face from the dust and wind. The people inside the Oblivion facility are frozen in almost a comical manner, jaws agape from the sudden exposure. Stiles sees Lorelei, standing tall and proud, in the middle of giving direction. They’re evacuating; Stiles can see that much. They’ve got a portal open in the back that’s similar to the one that has just been torn open in front of them.

It makes sense from a logistical stand point. Oblivion is mainly populated by trauma victims, so if there’s trouble, they would want to shelter them from danger. As for the criminals there, they wouldn’t want them causing any trouble during an attack. Since they have multiple facilities, the easiest thing to do would be just to open a Way from one place to another.

“Give him to me!” Naomi shrieks, her body racing forward.

“Buy them time!” Stiles shouts, and half a dozen wolves go leaping at Naomi. She bats them all away, but it slows her down. Stiles sees Lorelei looking up, her gaze zeroing in on him. Stiles can only stare at her. He mouths ‘I’m sorry’ and hopes that she understands. Because this is his fault. Sally and her warlock friend couldn’t find Oblivion themselves. They used Stiles and the others to find them. Jackson even kindly broke down the defenses for them.

Lorelei’s gaze only stays on him for a brief moment before she goes back to what she was doing, scooping someone up and passing them through the portal. Then she runs out the front. “Naomi,” she says.

“Naomi doesn’t live here anymore,” the woman says, and throws both of her hands up in front of her. Another wave of devastating force leaves them, throwing cars and pieces of debris in every direction. Lorelei stands in front of the nursing home, and the wave of force parts around her like the Red Sea, leaving the facility mostly untouched.

“Leave my sister,” Lorelei says, and she seems somehow larger than she was before, her aura casting shadows all around her. Her voice echoes and rolls like thunder. “Leave my sister or I will destroy you.”

“There’s nothing left of your sister now,” the warlock wearing Naomi’s body sneers. “You know that as well as I do.”

Lorelei’s jaw tightens. “Before long, there will be nothing left of you.”

“Stop stalling and fight!” the warlock shouts.

Lorelei raises her hands, and silver chains come from both of them. Stiles has seen this before, when she apprehended Jennifer Blake. The warlock screams in defiance and throws up a wall of rubble. The chains pierce right through it, wrapping around both of her wrists. She tries to pull back, but Lorelei yanks her forward, pulling her through the debris and slamming her into the ground.

“You want me to fight?” Lorelei asks, her voice cold. “You aren’t putting up much of one.”

Before the warlock can say anything, there’s a brilliant flash of light, and the chains shatter. Lorelei reels back from the force of it, one hand coming up to shield her eyes. Stiles has no idea what happened until he sees Sally Stoddard standing between them, picking up a piece of the chain from the ground.

“You’re not very good at this, are you,” she says sweetly to the warlock.

The temperature starts to plummet. The wolves, who have already started to back away, retreat even further, taking cover behind a row of demolished cars. Sally looks up with a questioning expression as frost races across the ground and ice closes around her feet. Then she gives a bright grin. “Daddy’s little protégé!” she exclaims. “We meet at last!”

“Could’ve done without,” Jackson says, as surly as ever. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sally says. “I do have to thank you for tracking down Jikininki for us. Poor baby’s been stuck in the shell of Cameron’s body for twenty years now. Twenty years! That’s since before I was born. And poor, pitiful Cameron can’t survive without a body to stay in.”

“Demon in a shell,” Stiles says to himself. “Can you hold your shape. Jesus Christ.” It’s great that he finally understands what’s going on, now that one of the Oblivion facilities has been torn to the ground and Naomi’s been possessed and Lorelei probably wants to kill him for leading the warlock to them.

“They’re out, Stiles!” Allison shouts, from where she’s been standing on top of the one of the cars and watching the Oblivion evacuation.

“Jackson!” Stiles calls. “Get us out of here!”

“Why on earth would we let you go?” Sally asks.

“How about this?” Allison asks, and tosses a grenade down into the center of what’s left of the parking lot. It explodes a moment later, in a shower of mountain ash. The next thing Stiles knows, someone has grabbed him by the collar and is dragging him through the Way that Jackson has opened up. It takes them back to where they had left the cars, and they throw themselves into them. Stiles can already hear sirens. He forces himself to drive the speed limit all the way back to the hotel, even though his mind is racing at a million miles per hour. The last thing he needs is to get pulled over.

Once they’re all back inside, relatively safe and hidden, a cacophony of questions breaks out. Stiles sits down on one of the beds and rakes his hands through his hair. “Oh my God, how could we have been so fucking stupid,” he groans. “She played us. She fucking played us like a God damned harmonica.”

“But what happened?” Scott reiterates.

“Twenty years ago, Cameron summoned Jikininki,” Stiles says. “For some reason, Sebastian Stone took exception to their presence on the same planet as him, probably because he’s an asshole. Everyone thought he banished Jikininki and then Cameron somehow got sent to Oblivion. But that’s not what happened at all. He swapped the two of them. Banished Cameron from his own body and stuck Jikininki in there instead.”

“So now . . . Cameron is looking for his own body?” Lydia asks. “But how could Cameron even still exist?”

“And why doesn’t Jikininki just start wreaking havoc?” Isaac adds.

“A human body can’t support demonic energy,” Jackson says. “Confine one that way, and if it tried to do anything, it would blow itself right the hell up.”

“How did Stone even do that?” Derek asks.

Jackson just shrugs. “As for Cameron, my guess from what Sally said is that Stone stuck him in an enchanted bottle or crystal or something. Sally inherited him, and now she’s let him out. And he wants his body back, because he can’t survive without one. He can try to inhabit other people’s bodies, and that’ll hold him for a while, but it’s not something he can do long-term.”

“And I take it that it’s not good for whoever he does it to,” Lydia says grimly.

“It depends on the person,” Jackson says, “but no, possession is never good for anyone. They fight over control, and usually get crushed by whoever’s invading them. It’s not the sort of thing that people come back from.”

“Jesus,” Stiles says.

Derek grips his shoulder. “That’s not your fault, Stiles. Sally let Cameron go, and he found Naomi without any help from you.”

“I guess so,” Stiles says. “But we led them to Oblivion.”

“Why couldn’t they do it themselves?” Boyd asks.

“They had nothing to look for,” Stiles says. “They knew we would be able to find Jikininki. Or, more specifically, they knew that Marzanna would be able to find it. And so they just made us think we needed to look for it, and sat back and let us do all the work. We even broke down the defenses for them.”

“Well, that part they could’ve done themselves,” Isaac says.

Jackson sighs. “No, I don’t think that they could’ve. Remember how I said it felt like the magic had sensed us, but wasn’t reacting to us? That’s because it looks for hostile intruders. It, it’s keyed to intent. We weren’t looking for Oblivion. We didn’t want to hurt any of the residents. We were just looking for a demon. So the outer defenses let us past. Sally and Cameron never could have gotten to the inner defenses at all.”

“Oh, geez,” Scott says. “So we just attacked an Oblivion facility, which let Sally and Cameron blow it up.”

“And on top of that, we didn’t get the warlock, and we didn’t save Naomi,” Stiles says, “and if Lorelei sees us, she’ll probably kick the shit out of us.”

“What was Lorelei even doing there?” Boyd says. “I thought their whole thing was that they stuck to their own territory and didn’t even know where the other facilities are.”

“Under normal circumstances, that’s probably true,” Stiles says, “but I bet that when Naomi disappeared, she went to the other field agents for help. If she was able to figure out that Cameron Marley was the sorcerer in question, she would have come here to see if she was able to get anything out of him. Or maybe to protect him, on the assumption that whoever had Naomi would come here.”

“Which they did,” Scott says.

“Yeah, fat lot of good it did anyone,” Stiles replies.

“This can’t be the first time an Oblivion facility has been compromised,” Derek says. “I think that’s part of the job. So hopefully Lorelei won’t hold it against us. Yeah, we made a stupid mistake, but . . .”

“We made, like, all the stupid mistakes,” Stiles says grimly. “Sally played us. She knew exactly how we would react and she fucking played us.”

Derek squeezes his shoulder again. “We need to take a step back,” he says. “It’s super late and we’ve been in the car for over twenty hours. Let’s order some pizza. You can take a bath, and get some sleep, and in the morning we’ll talk this out.”

Stiles groans, but does as he’s told. He heads for the bathroom while the others scour the internet to find a pizza place that’s still open. He manages not to think about his problems for five entire minutes while he runs the hot water and strips his clothes off. It’s not until he’s in the bath that the nagging thoughts return. “Hey, Peter?”

Peter appears, sitting on the lid of the closed toilet, and arches his eyebrows at Stiles. “You called?”

“I’m trying to decide exactly how badly I’ve fucked up,” Stiles says, and starts to summarize. Peter listens in silence, as usual, only rolling his eyes a few times to express his opinion of the situation.

“You really have made a mess of things,” Peter says, when Stiles is finished. “I can’t believe it didn’t occur to you that you were leading her to Oblivion.”

Stiles scowls at him. “She had Naomi! She didn’t need me to lead her anywhere.”

“Unless Naomi refused to give her Oblivion’s location, which clearly she did.”

“Aren’t there spells to force that sort of information out of people?” Stiles asks, exasperated. “Jackson used one on Eli Whitaker, right before Sally shot him so he couldn’t answer.”

“Oh, there are, but I doubt that any of them would work on a nephilim,” Peter says. “I’m frankly surprised that this Cameron Marley managed to possess her at all. He must be a relatively strong mage. Although I suppose that if he wasn’t, Sebastian Stone never would have noticed or cared about him. In any case, what’s done is done. Sally has led you around by the nose, and I think it’s high time we turn the tables on her.”

“Well, I’m all for that,” Stiles agrees. “But I don’t know what the hell you think I should do about all of this.”

“Nothing,” Peter says. “I think you should do nothing because this is not your problem. Oblivion has a breach. That’s their problem, not yours. A warlock is on the loose. That’s the Druidic Council’s problem, not yours. _Your_ problem is Jonas Aronsson – which if we’re going to be one hundred percent technical isn’t your problem either, he’s Mikael’s, but you seem intent on removing him so we’ll put that aside. All of these strange things going on with Oblivion and demons is just distracting you from solving the problem you set out to solve. Sally is playing a game with you. So change the rules.”

Stiles thinks that over for a long minute. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, okay. Oblivion was my _best_ answer for dealing with Jonas, but it wasn’t my _only_ answer.”

Peter nods. “Sally is setting up roadblocks for you. You’ve been trying to plow through them. Don’t. Go around them. Take a different route.”

“Just ignore the warlock on the loose, then?” Stiles asks.

Peter gives a snort. “Do the words ‘not your problem’ have no meaning to you? Should I translate it into your usual speech? Not your circus, not your monkey?”

“If Sally did it because of me, it _is_ my monkey,” Stiles says.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Yes, you’re personally responsible for the actions of a psychopath. You’re going to go far in life with that attitude. But putting your psychological issues aside, odds are good that if you bypass this and head straight for Jonas, Sally will come at you, and bring her little warlock friend along for the ride.”

“Okay!” Stiles nods and sits up, climbing out of the bath. He grabs his phone from the bathroom counter and swipes through his contacts until he finds the one he needs. “Hey,” he says, when Victoria Argent picks up. “It’s Stiles. I need a favor.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much is happening so quickly~

 

As usual, Stiles’ plan is met with a ‘we’re going to do who-to-the-what-now?’ from everyone he tells it to. It amuses him somewhat that Victoria is the only one who listens to it and agrees without question. This is probably because Victoria is the most ruthless person he knows, possibly even including Peter.

“Okay, I’m with you on how we need to redirect Sally,” Allison says.

“Uh huh,” Stiles replies.

“And how we’re going to make her focus on Jonas since that was the point of this anyway,” Allison continues.

“Yep,” Stiles says.

“And God knows that I don’t actually have a huge problem killing Jonas even though my father would probably not be happy to hear that,” Allison adds.

“Okay,” Stiles says.

“But what in God’s name makes you think that Mikael is going to go along with any of this?” Allison finishes. “I mean, you’re talking about kidnapping his son, putting him in a magical prison that will by default be solitary confinement, and then telling everyone he killed himself. What the hell are you even going to tell Mikael?”

“The truth,” Stiles says, with a shrug. Allison frowns and Derek grimaces. “Look, he was bound to find out eventually anyway. We’re going to need his cooperation to do this. I mean, we probably _could_ steal Jonas out from underneath his nose but I wouldn’t actually call that a brilliant plan. Sometimes it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, but I don’t think this is one of those times.”

“What if he doesn’t believe us?” Scott asks, his nose wrinkling. “He thinks that Ariah was the one who tried to kill him. He might not want to think that Jonas had a role in it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lydia says. “I bet that deep down, Mikael knows the kind of person that his son is.”

Stiles holds his hands up in surrender. “I talked to Victoria,” he says, “and she’s going to talk to Vanessa. I’m pretty sure that by the time we’ve hauled our asses all the way up to South Dakota, they can find some evidence for us. She’s also going to talk to Chris, who’s going to talk to Mikael, to make sure that he’s there to talk to us.” He frowns a little at all this talking, and shakes his head. “Victoria’s also going to persuade Vanessa to let us borrow her prison, since, you know, we need a place to stash Jonas.”

Several of the pack members give unfeigned shudders. Derek reaches out and absently rubs a hand over Stiles’ knee. “Are you going to be okay going back there?”

“Well, I have to admit that the idea doesn’t thrill me,” Stiles says, “but we shouldn’t need to be there long. Any questions?” he adds, and there aren’t any. “Okay, let’s get moving.”

“Can’t we sleep first?” Erica asks, sounding unenthusiastic.

“I want to get – ”

“Yeah, no,” Scott agrees with Erica. “You. Sleep. We’ll get an early start.” He’s tapping on his phone. “He lives somewhere near Rapid City, right? That’s about a ten hour drive. If we leave at eight AM, we can still get there by the dinner hour and have plenty of time to put your nefarious plan into action.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose at him. “Fine, be that way.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Mikael Aronsson and his family live on a ranch in South Dakota, not far from the Badlands. Stiles isn’t surprised at the size or the security. Annika is waiting at the front gate for him, wearing jeans and a cowboy hat, and she frowns as she lets him in. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “Dad didn’t tell me anything beyond that you were coming for a visit.”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Stiles says. “Warlocks. Demons. Assassins.”

Annika doesn’t look thrilled, but she waves them down the long dirt road that leads to the ranch. The house itself is surprisingly small, decorated in a rustic style. Mikael greets them warily, and gestures for them to follow him out back. He asks Annika to go finish her chores, which annoys her, and she stomps off. They sit on a small patio, overlooking miles of empty land. “Coming to see me in person like this,” he says, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “Doesn’t exactly put one’s mind at ease.”

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles says, waving off his offer of a drink. “But there are some things that really can’t or at least shouldn’t be done over the phone.” He huffs out a breath. “It’s about the assassin who tried to kill you.”

“What about him?” Mikael asks, one hand going to his chest automatically.

“Well, remember how he was hired by Ariah Nazario?” Stiles asks, and Mikael nods. “The thing is, she wasn’t the one who was actually behind it. It was Jonas.”

Mikael nods. “I know.”

“You know. You _know_?” Stiles asks. That was about the last thing he had expected.

“I’m not an idiot,” Mikael says. “As soon as Vanessa pointed out that the assassin was from Nazario territory, I figured it out. Do you think I didn’t remember sending my own son to live with Ariah right before it happened? Do you think I wasn’t aware of how angry he was at me?”

“But you . . .” Stiles trails off. “You never said anything. You never _did_ anything.”

“What should I have done?” Mikael asks. “Have my son killed? Put him in prison?” He takes a sip of his whiskey. “I tried to make amends for the way I had treated him, for how I had gotten him to that point. It wasn’t his fault. At least, not entirely.”

“Yeah, but just to do nothing?” Stiles asks. “He could have tried again. He could have succeeded.”

“Yes,” Mikael says. “The thought did occur to me.”

Stiles feels somewhat at a loss, and he glances over at Derek for help. Derek reaches over and laces his fingers through Stiles’. “Mikael,” he says, “we know that we can’t ever understand what it must have been like for you, to realize your son had tried to kill you. But I don’t think that blaming yourself is the answer.”

“Who else is there to blame?” Mikael asks. “He’s my son. I raised him. Stiles, you were the first to tell me that I should be concerned about him, and you were right. How could I have not noticed what he was turning into? How could I have not seen it?”

“Well, okay, but we could give a little blame to your uncle Greger, you know, who actually did raise him to be a psycho,” Stiles says, and Derek sighs. “But I think we can also lay a portion of the blame on his girlfriend.”

Mikael groans. “Sally didn’t help, that’s true, but I don’t think – “

“You know Sally is adopted?” Stiles asks.

Mikael blinks and says, “I think I heard about it at the time, although that was a long time ago. She was a war orphan, right?”

“Sort of,” Stiles says. “She was the daughter of a warlock that the Stoddard family matriarch abducted, in exchange for the warlock staying off their territory.”

“Christ,” Mikael says, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much never a good idea,” Stiles agrees. “She had clearly never seen Game of Thrones. But, uh, back on topic,” he says hastily, when Mikael rolls his eyes, “Sally inherited her father’s talent for magic and manipulation.”

“Okay,” Mikael says, “but what does she have against me?”

“Nothing,” Stiles says. “She just likes to create chaos. And she likes to ruffle my feathers, because I kind of killed her father. You know. Just a little.”

“Just a little,” Mikael says.

“He asked for it,” Stiles says, with a shrug.

“So you’re saying that my son tried to have me killed because Sally Stoddard – vacuous, whiny Sally Stoddard – was mad at you?”

“That’s sort of a simplified version, but it works,” Stiles says. “Don’t get me wrong. Like her father, Sally never tells anyone what to do. She just gives them little nudges. Jonas probably was bitching about you and said something like ‘I’m so mad I could kill him’ and Sally just . . . did the rest.” Stiles lets out a breath. “Derek’s right. I don’t know how you feel. When I realized what Jonas had done, I thought about killing him. But I don’t like killing, Mikael. And I don’t think Jonas can’t be saved. But we need to do something.”

“We don’t,” Mikael says.

“What if he tries again?” Stiles asks.

Mikael gives a little shrug. “He’ll make his own decisions.”

Stiles grits his teeth. “Okay, but you’re not thinking this through,” he says. “I don’t understand what it’s like to have my son try to kill me. But I do understand what it’s like to lose a parent. So if you can’t deal with Jonas for your own sake, do it for Annika’s.”

“Annika’s strong,” Mikael says.

“So it’s okay if she’s in pain?” Stiles challenges.

Mikael’s lips press together into a thin line. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Okay, but it’s pretty much what you said,” Stiles says. “Did you know how much watching you get shot hurt her? She still has nightmares about it. I know that because she told me. So you think if you get killed, she’s just going to be okay with that? Especially if she finds out her own brother is responsible?”

“There’s no reason she would find that out,” Mikael says.

“Not unless somebody tells her,” Stiles says, meeting his gaze.

Mikael’s mouth tightens even more. “That’s dirty pool, Stilinski.”

“And I play it well,” Stiles agrees. When Mikael hesitates, he says, “Your daughter needs help. Your son needs help. And you not helping them because you’re too busy blaming yourself for the fact that they need it makes you just as shitty a father as you’re worried that you’ve been, Mikael. And I don’t think that you’re that much of a hypocrite.”

Mikael sits there with his eyes closed for a long time. Then he lets out a breath. “What do you need me to do?”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Getting custody of Jonas is one of the easiest things that Stiles has had to do in a while. The first aid kit that the pack travels with is extensive and has a variety of drugs. One of those is a dose of Rohypnol that he got from his father, who had confiscated it during a drug bust. Mikael pulls Jonas aside with a, “Sit down and have a drink with me, we’ll talk about the Conclave.” Ten minutes later, Jonas is mostly unconscious. Jackson opens a way right out of the Aronsson’s living room and back to the Nazario’s former prison, where they’ve set up camp, and the group exits through it. Mikael has sent Annika on a hunting trip with her mother and her cousin, so they aren’t there to ask where Jonas is.

Allison sets up a circle of mountain ash around Jonas and they leave him unconscious. They’ll need something more secure for the long-term, but for now it’ll do. It’ll keep Sally from having any magical contact with him while they execute the next step.

Danny has been getting good at graphics lately, so it only takes him about half an hour to take the picture of Jonas lying unconscious on their floor and convert it to a picture of Jonas lying dead in a field not far from the Aronsson house. He and Mac went there and took pictures of it while Stiles was talking to Mikael.

“I’m pretty sure that just having this photograph is a felony,” Danny comments, as he sends it to Stiles’ phone.

Stiles shrugs. “What’s Sally going to do, have us arrested for murder? Jonas isn’t dead, so that charge won’t go very far.”

Mikael sighs. “Let me worry about the South Dakota police if she decides to get them involved.”

“Okey dokey,” Stiles says, and dials the phone that Sally had called him from earlier. She picks up with a perky hello. “Hey, Sally,” Stiles says. “I just wanted to let you know that this round is over.”

“Oh, is that so?” Sally asks, laughing.

“Yep. Check your incoming texts. I’m sending you a picture.” Stiles taps his phone several times.

There’s silence on the other end, and then Sally says, “It’s nice. Who’s your photoshop guy?”

“Photoshop is overrated,” Stiles says. “Just like Jonas was, before I put a bullet in him.”

Sally laughs again. “I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?” Stiles asks.

“You don’t dare. You need Mikael’s support at the Conclave.”

“No, Sally, I don’t,” Stiles says. “Count to eleven with me. Eleven hunter territories. Eleven members of the hunter Council. I’ve got three Argents, Lucy Arnelle, and Vanessa Nazario. You’ve got your uncle, Stella Jones, and the Order of St. James. Winchester and Peretti have abstained from everything thus far, Drake is dead, and Gutierrez has been kicked off the Council. If Mikael sides with you, it’s five against four, and I still win. I don’t need Mikael.”

“If he knows who killed his son, he’ll kill you,” Sally says.

“Who’s he gonna believe, Sally? You? As you’ve said, you’ve spent the last decade convincing everyone that you’re a ditz. I’ve got no motive here. Jonas hasn’t lifted a finger against me beyond pissing me off at the Conclave, and that was three years ago. I’ve made friends with Annika. Forgive and forget, right? So go ahead. Call Mikael and tell him you think I killed Jonas. Oh, I should mention that I have a pretty rock solid alibi. And there won’t be much in the way of physical evidence, either.”

“I could fix that,” Sally says.

“Sure,” Stiles says. “You could do that and fuck with my alibi and even produce a recording of this conversation, if you’re making one. But you’d have to drop your cover to do that, show Mikael that you have a brain, and I don’t think you want to do that. I don’t think Jonas is that important to you. So just admit I called your bluff. Admit that I won this round and we’ll call it done.”

“You know that there’s still a demon out there, and a warlock hunting Oblivion,” Sally points out.

Stiles shrugs. “Not my circus, not my monkey.”

“Is that really what you believe?”

“I guess you’re going to find out.”

There’s a click. Sally has hung up.

Mikael studies his phone for a minute. “Think she’s going to call?”

“No,” Stiles says. “Not yet, at least. She’s going to try to verify that Jonas is actually dead. Which means if she doesn’t call today, you’re going to need to call her, to let her know.”

Mikael nods. “More likely, I’ll call Ned. I’ve never liked Sally and she knows it, so . . .” He clears his throat and looks at his son. “What are we going to do with . . . about . . .”

“Well, we have to keep him inside the mountain ash, at least for now, but hopefully once we get everything cleared up with Oblivion, we’ll be able to have them take him in.” He claps his hands and says, “Okay, guys. Erica, Scott, Allison, I want you guys to stay here and keep an eye on Jonas. The rest of us are going to head back to Beacon Hills. If Sally’s going to hit us, she’ll do it there.”

There’s a round of nods. Several of the pack members exchange embraces. Stiles steps out of the room they’ve got Jonas in and gives a little shiver. He hates this place, hates being here, hates using it. He reminds himself that he has to do what he can with what he’s got. It’s not an enormous comfort.

“You okay?” Derek asks quietly.

Stiles nods. “Just a little shaky,” he says. “This place, it’s just . . . anyway, I’m just glad that we got Jonas secured. If only I had any idea what Sally’s next move was going to be, I’d be a hell of a lot happier.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles keeps in touch with the others by text, so he’s secure in the knowledge that they’re okay and that Jonas is pissed as hell but isn’t giving them any undue trouble when he gets back to Beacon Hills. Allison has called to give him a blow-by-blow of how Mikael’s call to Ned Stoddard went. As planned, Jonas’ death is being ruled a suicide. Tom has helped Stiles produce all the necessary paperwork and Danny and Mac have gotten it all ‘filed’ in the appropriate places.

Ned Stoddard expressed all the appropriate condolences and said that he would give Sally the news. Of course, they’ll have no way of knowing how that conversation went. But even without that, it seems that Sally has come around to believing that Stiles actually did it. He gets a call about an hour after they get back to Beacon Hills, just as he’s getting out of the shower and thinking about what he might make to eat.

He grabs the phone, sees the area code, and hits record. “Stilinski barbecue; you’ve got the fork, we’ve got the pork.”

“Hey, Stiles,” Sally says, but without her usual cheer. “You took my knight off the board.”

“For starters,” Stiles says, “Jonas wasn’t deserving of being called a knight in any sort of metaphor. Second, I think chess metaphors are pretty stupid. In chess, pieces can only move in limited ways. Real life isn’t like that. So, I took your psycho boy-toy off the board. What are you going to do about it? Since I assume you’ve decided that you can’t pin it on me, or at least you don’t want to have to waste the effort.”

“No,” Sally says. “You take a knight, so I take a knight.”

“And here we are with the chess metaphors again,” Stiles says. “Who’s my knight? Derek? My father? Chris Argent? I don’t think you’re going to have much luck going after any of them. They’re pretty capable of taking care of themselves.”

“No, no, I’m well aware of that,” Sally says. “How about the one person you can’t live without?”

“There are a lot of people I can’t live without,” Stiles says. “And that doesn’t really seem fair, given that I’m sure you can live without Jonas quite adequately.”

“Of course I can,” Sally says. “That doesn’t mean I want to. But there’s surviving and then there’s living.” She clicks her tongue. “A rather pithy turn of phrase. Where is it that I heard it? Would you believe that I first heard it from Jonas?”

“It doesn’t seem his style,” Stiles says, but he feels an uneasy stirring in his stomach. He has a feeling that he knows where Sally is going with this.

“No, that’s why I remember it so well,” Sally replies. “He said he had heard it from his sister. Some bullshit she fed him when he made fun of her for needing a therapist to get over seeing her daddy nearly get killed.”

“Don’t,” Stiles says.

“She apparently heard it from you, when you were feeding her the same bullshit, which was fed to you by whatever shrink you’ve been whining at. Now, personally I don’t believe in it for an instant, but it seems to have had some value for you, so I have to assume she means something to you. Poor little mundane bitch has no idea what’s about to happen to – ”

Stiles’ stomach has dropped into his feet. He hangs up without another word, knowing that anything he says would only be a waste of breath, and shouts, “Derek!” as he barrels down the stairs. Half the pack greets him in the hallway. “We’ve gotta go, she’s going after Gwen!”

 “Shit, she wouldn’t,” Derek says, as Stiles dials his phone.

“Son of a bitch, no answer,” he says. “Mac, get into her phone, get me her home address!” he shouts, and runs for the Jeep. The rest of them are hot on his heels, and Stiles doesn’t wait to see who ends up in which car before he’s starting down the road. Derek is in the passenger seat, and Stiles floors it.

“Should I call your dad?” Derek asks, seeing that Stiles is focused on driving. “He could call the Fresno PD, send someone out to check on her - “

“Yeah,” Stiles says, then shakes his head. “Wait, no. I can’t - ” He stops and takes a breath. “What can I say when I call the police? A psychopath who lives in Massachusetts made veiled threats against a therapist who lives in Fresno? And even if the cops got there, what could they do against Sally?”

“It could be a trap,” Derek says. “She could already be there.”

“I know, but - ” Stiles shakes his head. “But there’s nothing I can do about that.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I should issue a warning for this chapter but I'm not sure what it should be.....

 

Derek nods and dials Mac as Stiles turns out onto the main road. “Got an address?”

“Half a sec,” Mac says, and then starts to rattle an address off. Derek is entering it into the GPS on his phone as she says it, and the pleasant female voice tells them it will take thirty-five minutes to reach their destination.

“Thank God we don’t have to drive all the way to Fresno,” Stiles mutters, pressing harder on the accelerator. Gwen lives about twenty minutes north of the city, which puts her about twenty minutes closer to Beacon Hills. Stiles makes the drive that the GPS says should take thirty-five minutes in twenty-six. He skids up outside a small two-story house and bolts up to the door without even thinking about what sort of trap it might be, and bangs on the door.

Inside the house, there’s the sound of a few barking dogs, but other than that, nothing. Stiles stands there, tense and anxious, and then raps again. He’s about to ask Derek to break the door down when it swings open. Gwen is standing there in a tank top and yoga pants, with a questioning expression on her face. “Stiles, what on earth . . .?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles says, and throws his arms around her. She hugs back in startled silence. “You didn’t answer your phone!”

“I was in the shower,” Gwen says. “Come inside, for goodness’ sake.”

Stiles follows her inside and sinks into the first chair he sees, watching as Derek gestures to the others, deploying them outside the house to patrol and make a perimeter. He doesn’t realize he’s hyperventilating until Gwen kneels down in front of him and starts talking him through some of his deep breathing exercises.

When he finally manages to get his shit together, he says, “Okay, right, sorry. We’ve gotta go. There’s like an eighty percent chance that Sally’s coming here to kill you. Therapist/patient boundaries are off the table. Pack a bag.”

Gwen rises smoothly and says, “There’s a bag of dog food on the shelf in the pantry. Can you grab it for me?”

“Sure.” Stiles jogs into the kitchen and finds the dog food. He takes it out to the car. Gwen comes back down the stairs less than two minutes later, carrying a backpack and a laptop bag. She hands them to Derek, then picks up a bundle of leashes. “Where’s the other Dr. Mulroney?” Stiles asks.

“Doing field work in Costa Rica,” Gwen says. “It’s just me and the dogs right now.”

“How many dogs do you have?” Stiles asks, seeing the bundle.

“Four.” Gwen lets out a sharp whistle. Three pugs come trotting into the front hallway, tongues lolling happily. A wheezing English bulldog follows, ambling along at a much slower pace. Moments later, Gwen has them all leashed up and they’re headed out to the car. Derek opens the passenger door for Gwen, and she gets in, holding the bulldog on her lap and letting the pugs sit at her feet.

“Four dogs,” Stiles says, trying to kickstart his brain as he starts driving.

Gwen looks amused. “I like dogs.”

“I guess it just never occurred to me to think about,” Stiles says. “I mean, I knew you were married, but I had no idea if you had any kids or pets or what sort of place you lived or . . .”

“Stiles, that’s my job,” Gwen says. “If you know a lot about my personal life, I’m doing something wrong. But since some of the boundaries seem to be going out the window, I don’t have any children. I’ve never particularly wanted children, and Brent doesn’t either. But he does travel a lot, and sometimes I get lonely when he’s away, so, I have dogs. This is Gladstone,” she says, ruffling the ears of the bulldog. “And those three are Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

“That’s adorable,” Stiles says.

“Adorable names for adorable dogs,” Gwen says. “Now, why is Sally coming to kill me?”

“Well, she thinks I killed her boyfriend,” Stiles says. “Which I actually didn’t. But she’s pretty pissed off at me, and decided she was going to go after the person I can’t live without, or specifically, the person who helps me _live_ , rather than _survive_.”

Gwen gives a little grimace. “Well, I suppose I’m flattered. Do we have any sort of plan?”

“Well, I didn’t plan further than ‘get to Gwen before Sally murders her’, so no, at the moment I don’t. But I’ll come up with one. Presumably. I mean, I usually do.”

“How did she even know who Gwen is?” Derek asks, leaning over the seat so he could briefly nuzzle at Stiles’ ear.

“Honestly? We don’t even know that she does know,” Stiles says, calming down a little. “It’s actually pretty common knowledge that I see a therapist, and she heard about it from Jonas, who heard about it from Annika. She and I talked about it a lot, because she had a lot of the same issues I did about needing therapy – feeling like it made her weak, not wanting her dad or her brother to know, et cetera. So she mentioned it to Jonas at some point, presumably because was a dick about her seeing a therapist. From there, it would be pretty simple to figure out. There aren’t a lot of psychologists who specialize in supernatural trauma. And don’t forget, we have no idea how long or how closely Sally has been watching us. The fact that I was a regular commuter to Fresno for a while would make it pretty easy to narrow down.”

“I don’t suppose it’s worth asking how you got my home address,” Gwen says, and Stiles just gives her a rueful little shrug. “Thought not.”

“Anyway, Sally might or might not know exactly who my therapist is,” Stiles says, “and odds are good that there’s a trap in here somehow. She could have just blown up Gwen’s house with her in it before we even got there, if she knew who she was. Maybe she was counting on us to lead her to Gwen. Maybe she just wanted to send me into a panic. This is Sally, so . . .”

“So she’s undoubtedly got something nasty planned,” Derek says, and leans back in his seat with a sigh.

“Right. Which is why we’re going to get back to the den and then put up a circle of mountain ash so at the very least, she can’t nuke us from orbit,” Stiles says.

He tries to clear his head as he drives. The others are following behind, and Derek is texting, updating the people still in Wyoming of the situation. Stiles hates splitting up the pack, hates that feeling of being spread thin. A petty part of him wishes that he _had_ killed Jonas, since apparently Sally’s going to get revenge for something he didn’t even do.

When they reach the den, Stiles sends Boyd, Isaac, and Danny to do a quick patrol and make sure that nobody has somehow gotten in while they were gone. Jackson goes to set up the circle of mountain ash and some other magical defenses. Stiles arms the fence and double checks all the traps. He wishes like hell that Allison was there. She’s the best at this sort of thing. But there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Okay, so, uh,” he says, finally taking a breath and turning to face Gwen, who’s waiting for him patiently in the living room. “It’s late. I guess you can have the guest room. Oh, God, can she have the guest room? Has the guest room been cleaned in like . . . the last decade?” He looks appealingly at the others. “It’s probably a disaster, I’m sorry . . .”

“Stiles, it’s fine,” Gwen says soothingly. “You don’t need to apologize for the accommodations. You weren’t expecting guests and I’m hardly about to complain. But since I’m here, I’d love a cup of tea and to experience your baking firsthand.”

“Right, right.” Stiles lets out a breath. “The dogs can, uh, wander, I guess. I mean, they’re housebroken, right?” he adds, and Gwen arches an eyebrow at him. “Of course they are. Yeah, they can go wherever. Let’s make some cookies.”

He’s smart enough to know that Gwen’s handling him, that she’s redirecting him to positive, productive activity. But hell, she’s his therapist. That’s her job. So he heads into the kitchen. Derek is on his heels, and all the wolves are hovering. Gwen settles into one of the kitchen chairs. Gladstone, the bulldog, sits down right at her feet while the pugs run around and explore.

“Any preferences?” he asks Gwen, rooting around in the cupboard. She’s had his gingersnaps – virtually everyone he’s ever met has had his gingersnaps – and he’s given her a cookie plate for the last two Christmases running, so she knows approximately what he’s good at.

“Would you laugh if I said oatmeal raisin?” Gwen asks, smiling at him.

“No, somehow I can see that,” Stiles says, and laughs, his panic easing back a bit. He starts to assemble the ingredients. Derek is already heating the kettle for tea. “And actually there are pack members who like them, but hardly ever ask for them because they know that most people don’t, so they feel bad. So this will make you pretty popular with Boyd and Mac.”

Gwen nods. “Don’t forget that I’m – “

“Allergic to dairy. Yup, got it,” Stiles says. “Butter-flavored Crisco. The substitute of the Gods for vegans, lactose intolerants, and allergic people everywhere.”

Gwen chuckles quietly. “All right. Do you want to talk about what’s happened since the last time we spoke?”

“Sure.” Stiles huffs out a sigh. He’s quiet for a few minutes while he gets all the ingredients together and starts measuring. Once he’s stopped moving, Derek sits down on the counter next to him like he always does. Stiles starts telling Gwen about his decision to go after Jonas instead of continuing to pursue the demon and the warlock, pausing occasionally so he can run the mixer. “All I seemed to be doing in that arena was making things worse, so I figured if I did something unexpected, I could make Sally react to me, instead of vice versa.”

“Well,” Gwen says, sipping the tea that Derek made her, “she certainly did that.”

“Yeah, this really isn’t what I had in mind,” Stiles says. He looks over as one of the pugs trots in and starts sniffing his feet. “You’ve got a thing for pugs, huh?”

“It’s actually a somewhat funny story,” Gwen says. “See, I’ve had Gladstone for years, and I’d been thinking about getting a second dog but never quite gotten around to it. After I met you, and we talked so much about therapy dogs, I did some work for a volunteer organization that helped pick out shelter dogs that had the right personalities to be therapy dogs. And pugs are actually an often-overlooked but very good breed for emotional service dogs. Obviously, you can’t use them for guide dogs or mobility dogs, but for PTSD or depression, they work wonders.”

“I do see how that would work,” Stiles says, looking down at the little black pug that’s pawing at his ankle.

“In any case, these three were dumped at a shelter together,” Gwen says, “and had a lot of issues when people tried to split them up. Nobody who was looking for a service dog was really in a place to handle _three_ service dogs, so . . . I ended up bringing them home myself. Wynken and Blynken are boys, and Nod is a girl.”

Stiles slides the first tray of cookies into the oven. “It’s still weird to think of you having a life outside that office in Fresno.” He rubs his hands over his face and says, “I’m really sorry about this. It never occurred to me that I would put you in danger.”

“Believe it or not,” Gwen says, “this isn’t my first time being in danger. People with supernatural trauma bring an interesting flavor to work in my field. Although once I was actually accosted by the ex-boyfriend of a completely mundane client of mine, who blamed me for their break-up.”

“What happened?” Stiles asks.

“I maced him and ran like hell,” Gwen says, and Stiles laughs. “But you see my point, Stiles. Nobody is ever one hundred percent safe. In this universe or any other.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Stiles says. “How’d you get into this field, anyway?”

Gwen takes a sip of her tea and says, “It’s probably less exciting than you would hope. I didn’t know anything about the supernatural until shortly after I met Brent. He and I started dating and he invited me along on one of his camping trips. I knew he was a cryptozoologist but I also knew he was an intelligent person, so I figured his work was legitimate, but up until he caught and tagged the first manticore, I hadn’t realized exactly _how_ legitimate.”

“That must have been a nasty shock,” Stiles says, laughing.

“Just a bit of one,” Gwen says, reaching down to ruffle Gladstone’s ears. “I was already working on my doctorate at that point and was doing my thesis on PTSD. I asked Brent if people ever got attacked by supernatural creatures and he said yes, and I thought, how horrible that must be for them, to be unable to talk about their experiences or not believed or not even believe themselves. I started looking into it, and, well. The rest is history.”

“Good thing, too, considering how fucked up I’d be without you,” Stiles says.

The cookies come out of the oven a few minutes later, and Stiles is back to being calm, trying to think things through. He still feels like there’s a trap in here somewhere, but he can’t quite see it. Does it have something to do with Gwen’s work with Oblivion? How much does Sally even know about Gwen? What is it that he’s not seeing?

Once the cookies have been eaten, everyone is starting to yawn. Boyd and Isaac have cleaned up the guest room. Gwen reiterates that she’ll be just fine there, and everyone drifts away to bed.

“I think I’m going to stay up a while, maybe make some bread,” Stiles says. He doesn’t often make things that take time to rise, but he does enjoy kneading dough, so when he’s got time to kill because he can’t sleep, he figures he might as well give it a whirl.

“You want me to stay up?” Derek asks.

“Nah, you’re tired, I’ll be okay,” Stiles says.

“Okay. Come get me if you need me. You promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.” Stiles pulls the jar of yeast out of the refrigerator and kisses Derek on the cheek. Derek ruffles his hair and then heads up the stairs with the others. Stiles puts on some music on his phone and starts mixing. He decides to make brioche, a recipe he had perfected a while ago. It cold rises, so he can make the dough and then leave it in the refrigerator until morning.

He mixes the flour and yeast, sugar and salt, then pours in the hot water and starts adding eggs one at a time. Between the sound of the mixer and the music playing, he doesn’t hear anyone come into the room. He’s not exactly on guard. This is his den, his safe space. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.

So when there’s suddenly the point of a knife pressed into his throat, it takes him completely by surprise. He freezes in as much confusion as fear. “What the – ”

“Don’t move,” a voice says. A woman’s voice, a very familiar woman’s voice. Stiles risks a glance over his shoulder and sees Gwen standing behind him. She’s half a foot shorter, but has plenty enough height to reach up and press the knife into his jugular. And her eyes – her eyes are entirely black, just like Naomi White’s were.

“Oh my God,” Stiles says, his voice coming out weak and wobbly.

“And don’t scream,” not-Gwen says. “Don’t call your pack. They’re all sound asleep. No need to trouble them, am I right?”

“Oh my God,” Stiles says again, trying to breathe, trying to _think_. If the warlock has taken control of Gwen, it was probably hours before Sally even called him. This was the trap: Gwen as a Trojan Horse. But he can’t even bring himself to care about that, or about the knife pressed into his throat. All he can think about is the look of grief on Lorelei’s face, about Jackson saying that it wasn’t the sort of thing people came back from. “Oh my God, Gwen.”

“Shut up,” Cameron says. “You’re going to come with me. No, don’t reach for your phone. Do you think I’m stupid? Leave it.”

Stiles lifts his hands in surrender. He can already hear noise upstairs, footsteps. He doesn’t need to shout to get the pack’s attention when he’s in trouble. They can already feel his panic reverberating down the bond that they share. Cameron hears it, too, and twists around to put Stiles between him and the others just as Derek barrels in, naked and half-shifted. He comes to an abrupt halt when he sees Gwen standing behind Stiles with a knife at his throat.

“What the fuck,” Derek breathes out.

“Cameron has her,” Stiles says. He can feel tears stinging at his eyes. “It’s – this is all my fault, I didn’t think – ”

“Shut up!” Cameron digs the knife in, and Stiles feels the pinch of it, feels blood trickle down his neck. Several of the wolves let out low growls. “We’re going to walk out of here nice and slow,” he says. “Turn off that electric fence you’ve got running.”

Everyone in the room looks at Stiles for direction. He tries to clear his head, tries to think about something other than Gwen’s black eyes. “Okay,” he says.

Derek walks over to where he left the remote on the table by the front door, and presses the buttons on it. “Now let Stiles go.”

“Stiles is coming with me,” Cameron says. “Why do you think I came here?”

“Stiles can’t help you find your body,” Derek says.

“Oh, he can,” Cameron says. “He just doesn’t know it yet.” He takes another glance over his shoulder, taking quick, careful steps backwards, pulling Stiles along with him.

“Stiles,” Derek says quietly.

Stiles lifts his gaze to Derek and whispers, “I have to go. I have to stay with Gwen until – until I can – ” His voice breaks. He can’t finish the sentence, can’t even finish the thought. But he can see the understanding in Derek’s gaze, and his lupa nods.

By the time they get to the door of the house, Stiles is recovering enough to wonder exactly where the fuck Cameron plans on taking him. Is he going to make Stiles drive? Does he have a car waiting? Is Sally hovering in the wings to pick them up? As soon as Cameron eases up on the knife, Stiles is pretty sure that someone is going to make a move. They won’t do anything lethal – not with Gwen’s life in the balance – but Gwen would probably forgive some bruises if it kept Cameron from using her body to kill Stiles.

But none of that happens. As soon as they reach the circle of mountain ash, Cameron scuffs the line with his toe. Mountain ash is funny, Stiles has always thought, in that any sorcerer can make or break a circle. A circle of mountain ash is only an obstacle to a sorcerer if they can’t get to it. All you need is the intent. And as soon as the circle is broken, Cameron pulls them backwards and the world ripples around them.

Going through a Way is an interesting experience. Stiles has only done it a few times before this week, and he’s starting to get used to the sensation. It always makes him a little dizzy, and he closes his eyes involuntarily. He knows the feeling as soon as it happens, and when he opens his eyes, he isn’t surprised to see that he’s in a completely different place. It’s not a very exciting one. He’s lying on a dirt floor and surrounded by stone walls, and the only light is from a campfire. Darkness crowds around them in every direction. He doesn’t see the moon or any stars. The smell is vaguely metallic underneath the dirt, and he can hear a distant drip-drip of water.

“Well, well,” Sally’s voice says. “You actually got him.”

Cameron releases Stiles and gives him a little shove. “Told you I would.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised, given the bait,” Sally says, and something in her amused tone makes Stiles’ temper snap. He doesn’t even stop to think as he just leaps forward and takes her in a full tackle. Magic or no magic, martial arts or no martial arts, in that moment he wants _blood_ , and he doesn’t care what happens to him. He wants to grab Sally by the hair and smash her head against the ground until her skull crushes. He wants to tear her throat out with his teeth.

The sudden move, so uncomplicated and unlike him, takes her off guard. For a few brief seconds, Stiles has the upper hand. He has just enough time to get his hands around her throat before he finds himself flying backwards through the air. He slams up against the stone wall and lets out a grunt, trying to push off and regain his momentum. But suddenly he finds himself frozen in midair, unable to move at all.

“I wouldn’t,” Sally says mildly, and gestures. Stiles looks where she’s pointing reluctantly, to see that Cameron, still in Gwen’s body, is now holding the knife against Gwen’s throat.

“He needs a body,” Stiles grits out.

“Oh, we still have Naomi,” Sally says, and glances over at a limp form huddled in a corner. “We only needed Gwen to get to you. She might even survive, since she’s only been possessed for a few hours . . . but that, of course, depends entirely on your cooperation.”

After a moment, Stiles gives a nod. He drops to the floor, released from Sally’s spell. “I can’t find Cameron’s body for you.”

Sally laughs. “Of course not. I have something else in mind. All we have to do is find the Oblivion facility.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Stiles says. “That’s what we’ve been trying to do the entire time. Why the fuck do you think I know where it is?”

“You don’t,” Sally says, and points to Gwen. “She does.”

“Shit,” Stiles says, as he realizes that Sally is right. Of _course_ Sally is right.

“We tried to just get her to tell us,” Sally says, “but she was very recalcitrant. We needed some leverage, and now we have you!” She gives him a merry smile and says, “Funny old world, isn’t it? Use her against you, so we can use you against her. That’s the danger of caring about people.”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” Stiles asks, and okay, it’s not his best comeback ever, but he’s having a rough night.

The smile disappears off Sally’s face. “You’ve made me angry, Stiles. It’s not easy to make me angry, but you’ve done it. You took Jonas away from me, and I don’t appreciate that. So I’m going to take someone away from you.”

Stiles struggles back to his feet and says, “Don’t you even _try_ to compare this, because I know you better than that. Don’t you even _think_ that you can understand what Gwen has done for me. And let’s be real for a minute, Sally Stone. You’re not angry because your boyfriend is dead. You’re angry because I outsmarted you. Because you thought you had me and I outmaneuvered you. That’s why you’re pissed. I took away one of your precious game pieces and you hate feeling like you’re not the best player at the table. So you can be pissed at me all you want for killing Jonas, but don’t you fucking pretend that he meant one _tenth_ to you what Gwen does to me.”

Sally’s eyes narrow. “You’re right,” she says, with a nod. “You’re absolutely right, Stiles. So you know what? I think I’m going to make sure that you and Gwen suffer ten times as much as I am right now.”

Stiles opens his mouth, then thinks that maybe he should stop talking before he makes things even worse.

“Now take off your protection charm,” Sally says.

“Why in the holy hell would I do that?” Stiles asks. Sally’s gaze flicks to Gwen. “Hah! No. You just told me that you need her alive, and I know you plan to make us suffer, so having your little warlock buddy wave his pigsticker around isn’t going to work anymore. You want to hurt me, do it with your bare hands, because my protection spell isn’t going anywhere.”

“Fair enough!” Sally says brightly, and spins around suddenly, aiming a roundhouse kick at his face. He only barely gets his arms up in time to block, and grabs her by the ankle, trying to pull her off her feet. She does an impressive flip, pivots on one hand, and lands back on her feet. Stiles is so intent on her that he never even notices Cameron and the stun gun until he’s on the floor, writhing in pain.

“Don’t worry, Stiles,” Sally says, and pats his cheek. “I’m going to take _good_ care of you.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh .... I screwed up and wrote myself into a plot hole. =D I really don't want Cameron telling Sally all the things that Stiles told him in the previous chapter (while thinking he was Gwen) so can we all pretend that you didn't read that and instead Stiles said he didn't really want to talk about it and they just talked about puppies and stuff instead. Yeah. ^_^;;;
> 
> In other news, this chapter gets a trigger warning for torture of the mental/emotional variety, because I'm a terrible person.

 

Stiles awakes to a strange crackle of static and the sound of someone saying his name. He grunts and flails, one hand smacking against a wall. That wakes him up. There’s no wall in the pile of cushions he normally sleeps in. It takes several long moments for him to remember what happened. He remembers fighting with Sally, remembers her tugging the protection spell over his head once she had him immobilized. There’s nothing after that, so clearly she used magic on him to knock him unconscious.

He tries to assess his surroundings and find whatever’s making the noise. It’s dark, almost pitch black, the only light coming from a tiny green flash on the device that ends up in his hand. It’s a walkie-talkie, a fairly new one from the smooth plastic. He reaches up to rub one hand over his face and hits a wall again. A wall above him.

Stiles stops moving and everything in him goes cold.

“Don’t panic,” he says aloud, but his breath is already whistling in his throat. He closes his eyes and forces himself to push back the wave of panic with ruthless resolve. Then he slowly begins to feel around his surroundings. It’s not the trunk of a car. The smell is all wrong. He smells dirt, mostly. And to be honest, wherever he is, it’s even smaller than a trunk. The ceiling is only a few inches away from his face. He’s lying on his back, and the walls are pressed tight to his shoulders. There’s some cushioning, too, so he’s not just lying on the ground.

He’s been buried alive.

“Don’t. Fucking. Panic,” he repeats, feeling his stomach churn and his chest ache with the frantic beating of his heart.

He fumbles for the walkie-talkie, and twists at the knob until he hears someone saying his voice again. He jumps as if he’s been bitten and finds a button on the side. “H-Hello?”

“No cute greeting this time?” Sally asks, and clucks her tongue. “Stiles, I’m disappointed in you.”

“For some reason I’m not feeling very cute right now,” Stiles says, and tries to breathe shallowly. How much air can possibly be in this tiny coffin? He’s going to suffocate. He already feels dizzy. He’s hyperventilating. “Clock’s ticking. What do you want?”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Sally says. “You can’t see it, but there’s a vent at your feet. I don’t want you dying on me before we’ve had a chance to sort things out. Besides, there wouldn’t be enough air in there for twenty minutes, and I think I’m going to leave you down there for a couple days, just to teach you a lesson.”

Stiles tries not to whimper. He reminds himself that he’s not alone anymore. He has the pack. They’ll find him. “So why call me, then? Wouldn’t the torture be better if I didn’t know what was going on?”

“It’ll be much more fun this way, trust me,” Sally says. “See, I’m sitting here with our dear Dr. Mulroney, and it seems she’s still not inclined to tell me where the Oblivion facility is. I could just torture it out of her, but I was in the mood to torture you anyway, so, adages about birds and stones leap to mind.” She giggles. “I’m rather literally handling two birds with one stone.”

“Gwen’s all right?” Stiles asks, feeling his heart leap into his throat.

“A little worse for the wear, but Cameron was very careful with her,” Sally says. “He knew that she was the only one with the information we needed, so he left her mind intact . . . for now.”

Stiles swallows and closes his eyes, trying to bring himself to some sort of inner calm. “Well, I’m not going to tell her to tell you anything,” he says.

“Of course you’re not. You’re made of hardier stuff than that. But Gwen does care for you quite a bit. How long are you going to last, down in that little coffin, nothing but your own thoughts for company? Before much longer, you’re going to be screaming and clawing at the walls. The longer we leave you in there, the crazier you’re going to be when we take you out. Poor Gwen. She did all that work to fix you, and I’m just going to break you again.”

Stiles can’t think of any response to that, so he doesn’t make one. Sally’s not wrong. He’s going to lose his shit before much longer. There’s no need to subject Gwen to that.

“Stiles?” Sally says. “Are you still listening?”

Stiles takes a minute to gather himself before answering. “Stilinski Psychotherapy, you try to end ‘em, we try to mend ‘em.”

Sally breaks into a peal of laughter. “That’s very good, Stiles! You remind me of when my father used to do haikus with me. It always amazed me how quickly he could do them. He never had to count twice. You’re the same way. You must have a rhyming dictionary in your head. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that we don’t need the walkie-talkie to hear you. There’s a receiver in the coffin. It doesn’t matter if you use the walkie or not. Over and out.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Stiles mutters under his breath. He reminds himself that he just needs to buy time. If he’s not going to suffocate, he can just stay right where he is. The pack will find him. He just has to wait.

Sally’s torturing him the way she would anyone, but she doesn’t actually know how deeply his issues with claustrophobia run. She might not know that he’s claustrophobic at all. It really depends on how much of the incident at the first Conclave made it to her ears. Sure, Ian had known exactly what he feared, had tied him up and locked him in a freezer. But did Sally know that? Did she know _why_ he was so afraid of small spaces? Did she know anything about what Peter had done to him? Or was she just going with ‘buried alive’ because it was something that would make anyone have a breakdown eventually?

He’s sure that the coffin is very well sealed, but he might as well check. It will give him something to do, some way to occupy himself. He slides his hands along the ceiling, along the walls. He can’t sit up, barely even has room to roll onto his side. As expected, there isn’t so much of a crack. He feels around for the vent with his feet, although he doubts finding it would do any good. There’s a little gap in the bottom corner. He’s afraid to mess with it too much. If he blocks it somehow, he might suffocate before they realize anything’s wrong. If he could get his hands on it, he would give it a whirl, but he can’t just kick at it blindly.

The only thing he can do is talk, and he sure as hell doesn’t want to talk to Sally. “Cameron, I know you can hear me,” he says. “You know that Sally’s just using you, right? She’s not going to let you walk away. She never lets anyone walk away. She’s killed basically everyone she’s ever worked with. You know what she is. She kept you in a jar for how long?”

He stops and takes a breath. “If you help me, I’ll do everything in my power to get you back to your body. We can get rid of the demon for you, exorcise it so you can go back inside. Or you can keep it. I don’t care. But I swear to God, if you’ll help me get away from Sally, I’ll give you anything you fucking want.”

Everything is quiet. He can feel his breath whistling in his throat. Nothing happens. It was worth a try, he supposes, but he’s not surprised it didn’t get him anywhere. Cameron is probably just as psychotic as Sally is, and who knows what she promised him?

His stomach churns and every muscle in his body is so tight that it feels like it might snap. He tries to stay calm, tries to do the breathing exercises that Gwen has taught him, and wonders how long it’s been. He hates not being able to measure the time passing.

“Well, guys, if you’re going to torture me, I guess I’ll torture you right back,” Stiles says, and starts to sing. It’s one of his go-to coping mechanisms when he’s trapped in a small place. Helps keep his nerves steady, helps him keep track of time. “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high . . .”

He can do this. He’s worked on this. Gwen is counting on him, and he needs to hold himself together. The pack will come for him. Of course, the pack probably has no idea where he is and has no way of finding him, but they’ll figure something out. They always do.

So he sings and tries to breathe and somewhere in there he manages to roll onto his side and curls up there, trying to pull his knees up. They knock against the wall of the coffin and he lets out a harsh sob that he quickly swallows. “I’m okay, Gwen, I’m okay,” he says. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

He thinks about what he’s sung so far and the news isn’t good. He’s been in the coffin less than an hour, and he’s already close to breaking. “Shit, shit, shit,” he says, and then throws in some Polish swears for the hell of it. Polish has some good swears in it.

“You can’t do this,” a voice says, and Stiles nearly jumps out of his skin. It’s Peter’s voice. Stiles can’t see him, because there’s literally nowhere for Peter to appear, but he can hear him. “You might as well just give them what they want.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” Stiles whispers, swallowing another sob.

“Stiles, you’re going to break,” Peter says, and his tone isn’t even unkind. He’s just stating a fact. “It’s only a matter of time. So why prolong the agony? The sooner you start screaming, the sooner she’ll let you out.”

“As soon as Gwen tells them what they want to know, they’ll kill her,” Stiles says.

“No,” Peter says. “No, they won’t. Sally wants you to _suffer_ , remember? She’ll leave Gwen alive for you.”

Stiles takes in a rushed, shaky breath. His fingers curl into the cushioning beneath him. Every muscle in his body aches from how tense he is. “I won’t,” he says. “I won’t let her win.”

“She’s already won, Stiles,” Peter says.

Stiles says nothing.

There’s a long moment of silence. Stiles keeps his eyes shut and tries not to let the whimpers escape him.

Then, right against his ear, a voice murmurs, “Do you want the Bite?”

That’s all it takes. Stiles lets out a shriek that he won’t admit to later and flings himself away from the voice. He hits the wall of the coffin so hard that he sees stars for a minute. Panic takes over and he keeps screaming, clawing at the wall in front of him until his fingers are bleeding and his throat is raw. He does it for what feels like hours, until he’s so exhausted that he can’t move and he just lays there, sobbing and begging to be released.

An eternity later, he hears a crunching noise above him, and the coffin starts to move with a jolt. The next thing he knows, it’s been turned onto its side, and he just rolls out of it and curls up on the floor, his body still shaking with sobs.

“Well!” Sally says. “That was fun. Would you like some water? You look a little dehydrated.”

Stiles tries to scrape together a retort, but he can’t. All he can do is lie there, trying to cover his face, as if somehow that will keep Sally from seeing what a mess he is.

“Stiles,” Sally says, and gives him a light slap across the face. “Come on, Stiles. I need you here for this, okay?” She pulls his hands away from his face and he blinks up at her, shrinking away from the light. “There we go. That’s better. I thought you might want a chance to say goodbye to Dr. Mulroney.”

“Don’t,” Stiles manages, his voice hoarse. “Don’t hurt her.”

Sally pats his cheek. “You know my rule, Stiles. You said it yourself. Once somebody knows who I am, I have to take care of them. You’re the only person I’ve ever allowed to live after they figured out my identity. I imagine you’ve told others, but still, there’s no need to get ridiculous about it.”

“Please,” Stiles says. “What do you want? I, I’ll give you anything, just please – “

“Oh, Stiles,” Sally says, “and here I thought you told Ruben that you never beg. I guess everyone has their breaking point. Anyway, it’s too late now. Cameron took her body to help me bury you _and_ to help me dig you back up.” She gestures over at Gwen, who’s still dressed in the tank top and yoga pants, which are now smeared with dirt. Her eyes are completely black again. “We left just enough of her to give us the answers we needed, but there’s nothing left by now.” She stands up and turns away. “Tie him up,” she says to Cameron. “No point in underestimating my dear little friend, right?”

Cameron just nods and grabs Stiles by one arm, yanking it up behind his back. It takes him a few minutes, but he gets Stiles securely trussed up, knees bent back and his ankles tied to his wrists. “Let’s go, if we’re going.”

“Take Naomi’s body,” Sally says. “It’ll keep you safe from Lorelei.”

Cameron gives another nod. A moment later, Gwen’s body crumples to the ground. It ends up in an awkward, uncomfortable looking position, but she doesn’t make any move to straighten herself out. She just lies there, eyes unfocused and blank.

Stiles bites back another sob. When he manages to speak, his voice doesn’t even sound like his own. “Get your affairs in order,” he strangles out, looking at Sally. “Because I’m going to kill you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but trust me, Sally, I’m coming for you.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Sally says. She draws a circle in the air and steps through the Way with Cameron behind her.

It goes quiet again. Stiles just huddles up in the corner, trying to stop crying long enough to think. He can’t manage it. Every time he thinks he’s gotten himself together, he thinks about the blank expression on Gwen’s face, and he starts to sob again. Gwen is dead, worse than dead, and it’s his fault. After everything she did for him, he couldn’t protect her, and she –

“Stiles?” Gwen’s voice says.

Stiles’ eyes snap open. Gwen is leaning over him, her eyes back to her usual brown. He blinks up at her stupidly.

“Okay, Stiles, try to take some deep breaths, okay?” Gwen’s voice is a little hoarse, but just as calm and patient as ever. “We’re going to get out of here. Just breathe.”

“How . . .” Stiles stares up at her.

Gwen manages a wan little smile. “When someone is possessed, their mind gets crushed in the struggle for dominance. But if you don’t fight, if you just let go, you can survive it. It isn’t . . . easy,” she adds, and her body shudders. “It’s a lot like letting yourself drown on purpose. But since I knew it was coming, I was able to do it. Just meditated and . . . let go.” She takes another breath. “We have to go, okay, Stiles?”

“I don’t . . .” Stiles is crying again, and he’s not sure if they’re tears of happiness or confusion.

“Stiles.” Gwen takes his chin in her hand and gives it a firm squeeze. “You know how I’m always badgering you about the way you shut down your emotional responses in difficult situations? Because it’s not healthy? Well, pretend I never said any of that, because I need you to do it now. I need you to focus, to be the legendary boy in red, and get us out of this. Okay?”

Stiles swallows. He closes his eyes for a long minute, reaches for that alpha power inside himself. It takes effort, but he steadies himself out. “Okay,” he says, and opens his eyes. “Okay. First things first. Where the hell are we?”

“I have no idea,” Gwen says. She’s found a knife somewhere in Sally’s belongings. It looks like the same one Cameron was using earlier, and just didn’t bother to take back, since they didn’t think Gwen was any threat. A few minutes later, he’s untied, and he sits up and rubs both hands over his face, looking around. “It looks almost like Carlsbad Caverns. Have you ever been there?”

“No,” Stiles says. “I had an opportunity to go to Mammoth Cave last month, but instead I had to prove Martin Drake was a murdering son of a bitch.”

Gwen gives a little smile. “Well, there are cave systems all over the United States, but most of them have been turned into national parks and charge for tours, that sort of thing. I don’t know that it’s the sort of place that Sally could keep us undetected. But I suppose there’s no guarantee that we’re still in the United States.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Stiles is gathering the shreds of himself together now, reorganizing himself into a living, thinking human being. “I don’t know. Everyone seems to agree that making a Way is difficult. I don’t think Sally would have taken us further than she absolutely had to. But there is a question of how far that would be, and we have a couple clues.”

“Okay,” Gwen says, and looks at him expectantly.

“Sally buried me,” Stiles says. “Herself. With help from you-slash-Cameron. _Manually_. Why? Sally’s a bitching strong sorceress. Why didn’t she use magic? Grave-digging is fucking difficult. I know; I’ve done it. She’s used an absolute minimum of magic since she got here. She only used magic on me when I actively attacked her. After that, she brought me down with her physical skill and a stun-gun. She could have used magic to force you to tell her where Oblivion was, but went for torture instead.”

“That might just be Sally being Sally,” Gwen points out.

“True. But Sally being Sally doesn’t explain why she didn’t use magic to bury me or dig me back up. Then there’s this.” Stiles goes over and picks up the walkie-talkie. “What is this, the fifties? Why didn’t she give me a phone and call me?”

“There’s no way a phone would have service in a place like this,” Gwen points out.

“Yeah, I guess not, but . . .” Stiles is frowning. “I don’t suppose you still have your phone?”

Gwen shakes her head. “Cameron made me leave it behind.”

“Hm.” Stiles considers this for a long time. “But why wouldn’t Sally use magic? It’s like she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.” He shakes his head and manages to stagger to his feet. His legs are weak and feel uncoordinated. “Well, we’re not going to figure anything out by sitting around. Let’s see if we can find an exit.”

“If Sally was trying to use a minimum of magic, there might not be one,” Gwen says. “She built a Way in and out of this place.”

“That’s true,” Stiles says, “but you can only build a Way into somewhere that you’ve already been. Even Sally has to follow that rule. Which means that one way or another, there’s a natural way into this place. Let’s trace the edges of the cave, see what we can find.”

Gwen nods, and the two of them walk over to the closest rock. The cave’s walls are smooth, slightly damp, a vaguely pinkish tan color. Stiles walks slowly, being careful of his footing. He tries not to think about what’s going to happen when the fire burns low. There’s absolutely no natural source of light. “You stay here,” he says, as he starts walking. “Otherwise I won’t know if I get back to the beginning.”

“Okay,” Gwen says.

The cave is huge, as it turns out, easily the size of a school gymnasium. That’s good in one way, because it keeps his claustrophobia from kicking in. But by the time he finds an exit, he’s so far away from the fire that he can barely see. “Over here!” he shouts. “There’s a little tunnel.”

“Be right there,” Gwen says. In the dim light, Stiles watches her walk over to the fire and carefully gather up what small sets of supplies there are.

“I read about this once,” Stiles says, joining her there. “About how to navigate a cave. You have to watch the way the air moves. Are there any matches?”

Gwen roots around and then nods. “She really _doesn’t_ want to use magic,” she says, and tosses Stiles the small box. “Should we try to make a torch?”

“We don’t have anything to use as fuel,” he says, and shakes his head. “We’ll have to deal with it being dark, I guess.” He looks through what else there is. It isn’t much. Two bottles of water, which is certainly better than none. A utility knife, which he definitely appreciates, and the remains of the rope they had tied him up with. The shovels they had used to bury him, and the coffin, of course. This definitely hadn’t been planned to be a long-term hideout. They had chosen it specifically to keep him secure, and keep his pack from finding him.

“Okay, let’s move,” he says, and picks up one of the longer pieces of rope. He ties one end around one of his belt loops, and the other around Gwen’s wrist. Then he starts down the tunnel with his hands on both sides, so he’ll know if it opens up or if they come to a crossing.

Before a few minutes have passed, they’re in total darkness. He’s strangely calm about this, and wonders if he’s all hystericked out. Gwen begins to hum softly, and he joins her. Why not? He has to walk slowly, because the ground is uneven and rough. They’re both barefoot, and an injury will slow them down even further.

His left hand encounters air. He stops and feels around carefully. “Crossing,” he says, and lights a match. He watches the flame flicker in the darkness, watches the way the air moves it. “This way,” he says, following the air flow.

They walk another ten minutes or so. “I’m really sorry I ever got you involved in this,” Stiles finally says.

“Stiles, nothing about this is your fault,” Gwen says calmly.

“I know, I guess, I just – “

“No,” Gwen says. Her voice is firm. “ _Nothing_ about this is your fault. Sally is a psychopath who enjoys hurting people. Everything you’ve done has been to try to keep her from hurting others. Yes, she got angry with you for that, and yes, she hurt people because of that. But that doesn’t make it your fault, Stiles.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says.

“I’m sorry that this happened,” Gwen says, “and I’m sorry that I did what they forced me to do. But I know that it isn’t my fault. And when you picked me up, when Cameron told me I had to go along with it, to lull you into a sense of security, I did it because I had faith that you would find a way to get us both out of this.”

“I’m not the one who kept your mind from getting crushed by Cameron,” Stiles says.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t giving myself any credit at all,” Gwen says, with a quiet laugh. “I have faith in myself, too.”

Stiles lets out a breath. “I’m not very good at faith sometimes,” he says.

“Well, for now, you’re going to have to let me be good at it enough for both of us,” Gwen says.

They reach another crossing. And then another. The air is starting to get a little lighter. He realizes suddenly that he can see. Only barely, just dim silhouettes, but there’s light coming from somewhere.

When they reach the cave’s exit, it’s not exactly what he was hoping for, although it is a breathtaking view. They’re halfway up a mountain, with sheer cliff walls in every direction. The rocks are bright orange-red with patches of pale tan. Below them, a river snakes through an astonishingly green valley.

“I know this place,” Peter says, suddenly appearing beside Stiles and Gwen on the cliff face.

Stiles nods, somehow not surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “We’re in Faerie.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this fic turned out surprisingly short. I'm not sure what to make of that.

 

“Well, that does explain why she didn’t want to use a lot of magic,” Peter says. “That would basically be like tossing up a signal flare and daring people to come see what she was up to.”

“No phones, either,” Stiles says, nodding. “Their little electronic brains can’t handle Faerie.” He lets out a breath. “Okay. You’re the Faerie expert. Where the hell are we, and where do we go? Oh, and how the hell do we get home? Because I can’t open a Way back to the real world, and neither can Gwen.”

“You’re going to have to bargain to get one opened for you,” Peter says, with a nod. “Fortunately, you’re in Summer, and the Summer fae are much more easy to bargain with than the Winter fae. They love baubles and honey milk and generally other worthless things. Promise to bring them something like that back from the human realm, and they’ll open a Way for you in a heartbeat. But first you need to get down to the Verdant Valley.”

“Is that the name of this place?” Stiles asks, and Peter nods. “Figures. I’m sure you’re about to say ‘there’s a way down’, right?”

“Not from here, not that I know of,” Peter says. “I recognize the valley, but I never came to it from the cliffside.”

“Some help you are,” Stiles grumbles. He sighs, looks at Gwen, and says, “How do you feel about rock climbing?”

“Like I’ve never done it without a harness and gear and 911 on speed dial,” Gwen replies.

“Same,” Stiles says. “But this cave has been used before. I can see hand and footholds carved into the rock. It’s not going to be easy, but I think we can make it down. We’ll go slow. Shout if you need a breather.”

Gwen nods, so Stiles starts down. It’s not as difficult as it could be. Actually, if it weren’t for the lack of safety net, he would probably enjoy it. Faerie is beautiful, and the weather is absolutely perfect. It’s warm but breezy. Light seems to come from everywhere, but there’s no sun beating down on their backs. And whoever made the footholds knew what they were doing. They’re deep and solid and evenly spaced. there are enough of them that Gwen and Stiles can climb side by side, so he doesn’t have to worry about Gwen falling on him.

Before a few minutes have gone by, he hears a twittering, and a distinct groan from Peter. A swarm of pixies is descending. “Hang on,” Stiles calls to Gwen, and they both stop moving as the pixies zoom in every direction.

“Strangers!”

“On the cliff!”

“What pretty hair!”

“You smell weird!”

“Strangers!”

“Humans!”

“Ask if there’s a bogle living nearby,” Peter advises.

Stiles isn’t about to question Peter, so he says, “Hey, anyone know if there’s a bogle living anywhere near here?”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“Yes, the bogle in the marshes!”

“The marsh bogle!”

Peter mutters something uncomplimentary. Since asking for directions obviously isn’t going to get them anywhere, Stiles says, “Can you guys show us the way?”

“Yes!”

“Of course!”

“What do we get?”

“We want the bauble!”

“Yes, the shiny bauble!”

Stiles is about to ask exactly what shiny bauble they’re referring to, but then he notices that two or three of them are swarming around Gwen’s hand. Her left hand, where she wears her wedding and engagement ring set. “Oh, uh, guys, I don’t think you can really . . .”

“It’s fine, Stiles,” Gwen says, her voice just as calm as ever. “Brent has lost his wedding ring three times. Casualties of field work. I’m pretty sure he won’t have a problem with me giving mine to a pixie so we can get back to the human realm.” To the pixies, she adds, “But I can’t give it to you until we’re off the cliff, because I need two hands to take it off.”

“This way!”

“This way, down the cliff!”

“This way!”

“So why a bogle?” Stiles asks, as he starts climbing again.

Peter sounds dourly unamused, probably because he thinks pixies are annoying. “Bogles have a great love of all things human. They’ll be the easiest to bribe. A handful of shiny CDs, a pearl necklace, some bread and honey, and it’ll be quite satisfied. But they tend to live in isolated spots and can be difficult to locate.”

“Gotcha,” Stiles says, and keeps climbing.

About an hour later, they come to the floor of the valley. Stiles desperately needs to rest, and Gwen manages to sweet talk the pixies into giving them a break, entertaining them by letting them braid her hair. “This is better than a professional stylist could do, if we’re going to be honest,” she says, laughing. She looks around as birds twitter around their heads. “This place reminds me of Zion, in Utah. Have you ever been?”

“No,” Stiles says. “It must be beautiful there.” He takes a sip from their water bottle. “You’ve traveled lot?”

Gwen nods. “Brent does field work all over the world, and I try to take a week or two a year to go with him. I’ve been to some stunningly beautiful places. I loved Alaska, and Montevideo in Uruguay was really nice. Ooh, and Copenhagen was amazing. We took a month once and traveled all over Southeast Asia, going to Thailand and Laos and Cambodia. That was a really memorable trip.”

“That sounds really nice,” Stiles says, and sighs wistfully. “I guess I’m more of a homebody than that.”

“Well, part of that is your alpha instincts. You don’t like to be away from your territory. But part of it’s also because you’re a kid.” Gwen smiles at him. “You’ll do more traveling when you’re an adult, and you’ll see some beautiful places.”

“I guess that’s probably true.” Stiles perks up. “I remember when I was young, and we used to drive over to the beach for a week during the summer. We’d go to Point Reyes and Muir Woods and everything. That was always really nice. I miss doing that. I guess life got pretty complicated.”

“You have to take time for yourself, you know,” Gwen says. “That’s important.”

“Well, once the Conclave is over, maybe I’ll take a trip to Utah,” Stiles says. “I mean, the Great Salt Lake Desert was pretty nice,” he adds, and Gwen gives a snort of laughter. He sighs and hauls himself to his feet. “Okay. Better get moving.”

“This way!” the pixies chorus, and flitter off. Stiles helps Gwen up and the two of them start walking again. Compared to the cave and then the cliff, this is easy terrain. The path is the same orange-red rock as the cliffs, worn smooth by time and hundreds of feet. They’re walking beside the river, and there are a lot of trees to provide shade.

Before too long, the rock ends and they’re walking on red mud that squelches beneath their feet. Grass is growing there, and it tickles their feet. The river gets wider and more shallow, and the edges turn marshy. Stiles can see lily pads and cattails growing in some of the streams that shoot off from the main river.

“Here, here, here!” the pixies chorus, and then zoom away before Stiles can thank them, fighting over Gwen’s engagement ring as they go.

“Anybody home?” Stiles asks uncertainly, looking around the marsh.

“There,” Peter says, appearing beside him, and pointing off to Stiles’ left. Stiles looks over and sees enormous orange eyes watching him from behind a log. He nearly jumps ten feet in the air. “Be polite, but informal. He’ll think you’re trying to trick him if you act formal.”

“Hey, friend,” Stiles says, smiling at the log. “Any chance you could make me a way back to the human realm? I’m stuck here, and I’d really like to get home.”

The bogle starts to rise out of the mud – Stiles thinks. It seems to be made of mud, so it’s difficult to tell where it ends and the marsh begins. Grass and cattails are sprouting out of what looks like its arms and torso. Gwen lets out a little gasp despite herself and wraps a hand around Stiles’ wrist.

“What do I get out of it?” the bogle asks, and its voice is deep and surprisingly clear, not at all muddy.

“I could bring you back something,” Stiles says, careful to keep a friendly, casual tone. “What’s your pleasure? You like pizza? Jewelry? Dolls?”

“Careful,” Peter says. “Try to find something that you can deliver quickly and easily. You don’t want to make it wait.”

“Something shiny,” the bogle says at the same time.

“I know just the thing,” Stiles says. “It’s shiny, it’s long and twisty, and it’ll match your surroundings perfectly. I’ve got a ton of it at home; if you could just open a way for me, I’ll give you all I have.”

The bogle gives a little grunt. Mud splatters everywhere, but the space between Stiles and the bogle ripples. He takes Gwen’s hand and pulls her through.

It’s a lot colder back in Beacon Hills, and still dark. Summer in Faerieland doesn’t have night. Stiles isn’t sure of exactly how long he was gone, but clearly it wasn’t long enough for the sun to have risen in the mortal world yet. “Stay here one sec,” Stiles says to Gwen, and jogs towards the house. It’s empty, and silent, although there are still a few lights on. Wherever the pack has gone to look for Stiles, they didn’t leave anyone behind.

He goes into Derek’s studio and fumbles around until he finds the several coils of copper wire that Derek sometimes uses for sculptures. Then he runs back out to the backyard, where Gwen is still standing next to the Way. “Here you are, my friend,” he says, popping his upper half back through and tossing the rolls of wire to the bogle. “Thanks kindly.”

“So orange,” the bogle says admiringly. “So shiny.”

Stiles ducks back into the mortal realm. A minute later, the Way snaps shut.

“How did it know that you would keep your word?” Gwen says. “It opened the Way and just sent you through. You didn’t have to come back.”

“Faeries don’t think like that,” Stiles says. “A deal is a deal. They would never break their end, so it doesn’t occur to them that we would break our end. Oh, eventually it would have come through to look for me, slopping mud everywhere, but that’s something nobody wants to have happen.” He’s already trotting towards the house as he speaks. “It should have occurred to me to ask earlier, but – did you give Sally the actual location of Oblivion?”

Gwen nods. “But if we hurry, we can beat her there.”

“She has like a four hour head start,” Stiles says.

“Yes,” Gwen agrees, “but it’s not like she can teleport right there. She can only open a Way to a place she’s been. So she had to go to the closest place she could recall – which was probably here – and start from there. Plus, it’ll take her some time to get through the security. But I know the back way in.”

“Okay.” Stiles grabs his phone off the counter, right where he left it, and dials Derek. He picks up halfway through the first ring.

“Stiles?” he demands, his voice louder and higher-pitched than normal.

“It’s me,” Stiles confirms, and he can feel a wave of relief as their bond reasserts itself, now that he’s back in the human realm. “Took a little side trip to Faerie. Just got back. I’m at the den, where are you?”

“Chris’,” Derek says. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Should I call – ” Stiles starts to ask, but Derek has already hung up. Oh well. The others will know he’s back, will feel it, so if they’re not with Derek, they’ll either head back to the den or call him soon. Since he has a minute, he starts the coffee maker. “Where are we going?” he asks.

“It’s not far,” Gwen says. “South of Lake Tahoe, in the mountains.”

“Jesus, that’s hours from here,” Stiles says.

Gwen gives him a somewhat exasperated look. “It could have been anywhere in the country, and you’re going to quibble about a four hour drive? It is what it is. Now, since we have a few minutes, I’m going to run upstairs and change clothes. I’m still in my pajamas, for crying out loud.”

“Right,” Stiles says, and she goes up the stairs. As soon as she’s gone, he feels himself start to get twitchy. He doesn’t like being alone, hasn’t in years, and while he has something to focus on he can hold the panic at bay. But when he’s just standing there, watching the coffee maker drip, it sneaks back in. He lets out a shuddering breath and grips hard on the counter.

“Hey,” Gwen says quietly, from the doorway, and he flinches so hard that he nearly breaks something. “You’re okay, Stiles. Just breathe. We’re going to do some breathing, okay?”

Stiles nods, swallows, and tries not to burst into tears. They’re home, they’re okay. He doesn’t even _have_ to go fight Sally. He probably should, but nobody can make him. He could go hide in Deaton’s clinic and get hugged for eighteen hours. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll get hugged and maybe make some peanut butter brownies. He feels like that’s the best plan.

He’s still thinking about this and breathing carefully when Derek shows up. He’s a wolf as he bolts through the door, but shifting as he goes, and he’s full human by the time he has Stiles wrapped up into a hug. Stiles hugs back as hard as he can, pressing his face into Derek’s neck and clinging to him.

“Are you hurt?” Derek growls.

“No,” Stiles says. “Sally kicked me around a little, but I’m okay.”

Derek nods, presses his cheek against Stiles’ hair, and then looks up at Gwen. “What about you?” he asks.

“I’m all right, thank you,” Gwen says.

The others are coming in now, through both the front and the back, and there’s a lot of chatter. Stiles is getting hugged by virtually everyone, and is starting to feel okay again. Once he’s taken some deep breaths, he says, “Okay. To make a long story short, Sally got the location of Oblivion’s main facility from me and Gwen, and she’s heading there now with Cameron to get his body back. We have to try to beat her there, to warn them.”

“Where is it?” Isaac asks.

“Near Lake Tahoe,” Stiles says.

“How much of a head start do they have?” Boyd asks.

“About four, maybe five hours. It’s hard to judge time exactly.”

“Shit,” Lydia says. “They could be there already, or at least close. And even if Mr. Argent gets us a plane, that’ll take some time; they’d need to file a flight plan, and – ”

“Can’t you just open a Way?” Danny asks, turning to Jackson.

“You can only open a Way to a place you’ve been before,” Stiles reminds him.

“Yeah, like, the lodge at Lake Tahoe where I go every summer?” Jackson says, and rolls his eyes. “I can’t get us to Oblivion, but I can get us a damn sight closer than we are right now.”

“Well, hot damn,” Stiles says. “Let’s do it.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

It takes Jackson about twenty minutes to open the Way. Stiles pesters him about it, once, and Jackson gives him a deathly stare and asks if he wants only half of himself to get there. That shuts Stiles up. He’s fine taking a breather, anyway. He curls up in Derek’s arms and lets the pack fuss over him. He hasn’t told them much about what had happened. That will have to come later.

“Okay,” Jackson finally says. “I’ve opened it into the courtyard in the back. This time of night, nobody should be around to see. But what are we doing about transportation once we get there? We can’t drive a car through this.”

“About how far away do you think we’ll be?” Stiles asks Gwen.

“Is the lodge north of the lake, or south?” she asks Jackson in turn.

“South.”

“Not too far, then,” Gwen says. “Ten, maybe twenty miles.”

“Still way too far for us to walk, or even run,” Stiles says. “Gwen, there must be a road that goes there, right? I mean, you don’t hike to it when you go there,” he adds, and she gives a nod. “Then we’ll steal a car when we get there. It’s not my preferred method, but needs must when the devil drives.”

Jackson nods. “Okay,” he says, and steps through with Wilma on his heels. The rest of the pack hastens to follow. Stiles holds Derek’s hand while he goes through, paranoid about being separated from him again. But a minute later, they’re all assembled in the courtyard over a hundred miles from where they started.

“Parking lot’s this way,” Jackson says, jerking his head to the side and heading that way at a brisk walk. Jackson Whittemore does not jog. Wilma trots along on his heels, tongue lolling. Stiles shakes his head and follows them, scanning the lot for a truck or an SUV that might be able to fit them all if the majority of the pack go as wolves. They’re down three pack members, since he left Scott, Allison, and Erica to keep an eye on Jonas. Now he wishes he hadn’t, since they’re among his best fighters. Of the pack members left, only Derek and Isaac are really up to Scott and Erica’s level, and neither of them compare with Allison.

But there’s not much he can do about that. If he’s lucky, Jackson will do the heavy lifting. So he singles out a newish looking blue pickup truck and points. “That one.”

Derek nods, already shifted, and picks up a rock that he clearly intends to put through the driver’s side window.

“Whoa, whoa, hang on a sec.” Danny, who isn’t shifted, has his phone out. “This thing is completely electronic. Give me a minute and I can unlock it for you.”

“You can do that?” Lydia asks.

“A guy at Berkley taught me,” Danny says.

Stiles wonders exactly what sort of people Danny is consorting with at Berkley, and if he can get introduced. But there isn’t time to ask. A minute later, the car’s locks have popped, and Danny says, “Still have to hotwire the ignition the old fashioned way, though.”

“No problem,” Stiles says, as Jackson climbs into the front passenger seat and then gives Gwen a hand up to sit next to him. The others are hastily clambering into the trunk. And it really isn’t a problem. Half the pack know how to hotwire a car. It’s the sort of thing that Stiles wants everyone to have available as often as possible.

“We should leave a note,” Gwen says.

“Saying what?” Jackson asks. “ ‘Sorry we stole your car; we’ll bring it back, please don’t arrest us’?”

“Something of the sort, yes,” Gwen says.

“Well, I’m not carrying anything to write with, so, they’re just going to have to suffer,” Stiles says, backing out of the space and heading out of the parking lot. Gwen sighs, but gives him directions. They zoom out of town on Route 89, but before ten minutes have passed they’ve taken a turn off, and then another, onto a small, dirt road.

“How much further?” Stiles asks, hands anxiously tapping the steering wheel.

“About five minutes,” Gwen says.

“Okay,” Stiles says, and looks for a place to pull off. There aren’t many choices. The road is narrow, barely able to accommodate two cars side by side. Of course, he doubts that it gets traveled very much. But as soon as he sees a slight gap in the forest, he pulls the truck to the side. They can’t drive up to the front door. “Any way to tell where Sally is?” he asks.

“Well, someone’s working some major mojo right up the road, so I’m gonna guess that’s her,” Jackson says.

Stiles nods, then turns to Gwen and says, “Lead the way.”

Gwen nods. There’s enough light to see by now, as the sun slowly rises and sunlight trickles through the trees. She walks about another quarter mile on the dirt road and then turns off onto a path that Stiles didn’t even see. He imagines that it’s the sort of thing you can’t find unless you know where it is.

“Why do these people even have a back door?” Boyd asks. “I mean, in the case of an emergency, can’t they all just build Ways in and out?”

“Just a precaution,” Gwen says. “Any magic user can get tired, even one from Oblivion. If they’ve been fighting someone off and eventually decide to evacuate, they might not have enough power left to form a stable Way.”

“Those things aren’t easy, you know,” Jackson says, sounding disgruntled. “I mean, if you just want to make one for yourself and zip down to the club, sure. But to make one large enough, that will last long enough, to move dozens of people through? That takes a lot of juice.”

“I’ll take your word on it,” Stiles says. Gwen just shakes her head and continues walking. The wolves are moving around them, ranging out occasionally, making sure that nobody is anywhere near them. “Is it weird that it’s so quiet?”

“What were you expecting?” Jackson asks.

Stiles shrugs. “You talked about it like she’s trying to break down a wall or something. So yeah, I expected some noise.”

“She’s trying to break down a magic wall, with magic,” Jackson says. “She’s not drilling into a safe, for fuck’s sake.”

“We really need to work on your attitude,” Stiles says cheerfully.

Jackson flips him off.

Derek gives a growl that’s part huff, part laugh. He wraps an arm around Stiles’ shoulders and nuzzles his hair, clearly glad that he’s feeling a little better. Stiles manages a smile for him. He knows he’s going to pay for this repression later – boy does he ever know it – and he’s sure that Gwen does, too. But he’ll just have to handle that as it comes.

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, there's a super-duper exciting announcement [on my tumblr!](http://gingersnapwolves.tumblr.com/post/133743731834/when-a-young-woman-is-found-murdered-on-the)

 

A few minutes later, the path opens into a clearing. There’s a large building there, constructed out of dark wood with white trim. There are a lot of lights shining from the windows. Stiles is sure that anyone who somehow wound up on this road would probably assume it was some sort of lodge or hotel. The clearing is mostly grass, neatly trimmed, although he sees a garden off to one side. He supposes that it probably helps the residents to have something productive to do with their time.

Gwen walks through the small yard and up onto the porch, which has several comfortable looking chairs and a small table or two. Rather than knocking, she simply presses the flat of her palm against the door. Stiles sees Jackson give the door an interested look, and assumes that magic is taking place, although he can’t sense it. Then Gwen twists the knob and lets them in.

“Dr. Mulroney!” They’re greeted by a dark-skinned man who’s bouncing on the heels of his feet. “Dr. Mulroney, people are trying to get us! They’re trying to get inside! We’re not safe here! We need to evacuate!”

“Tayshawn, we’re going to be just fine,” Gwen says, with a reassuring smile. “The people here would never let any harm come to you. We’ve talked about that, remember?”

“But there’s people trying to _get in_ ,” he says.

“And we’re going to stop them.” Gwen reaches out and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Where’s Lorelei?”

“Upstairs,” Tayshawn says. “In the library.”

“Okay. Why don’t you go find Karla, okay? I’m sure she’s upset. You can help her feel safe, right, Tayshawn?”

“Okay, Dr. Mulroney,” the young man says, and trots off.

“This way,” Gwen says to Stiles, and they head through the dining area and down a hallway. A few other residents stop and gawk at the pack of wolves, but Gwen is always ready with a few reassuring words or a smile. They go up a set of stairs and into a library that’s even bigger than the one Stiles and the others keep at the den. Lorelei is standing at the front window, her back straight and stiff. “How bad is it?” Gwen greets her.

Lorelei turns to them. Her gaze sweeps over the group, lingers on Stiles for a minute, and then focuses on Gwen. “She’ll get through eventually,” Lorelei says. “She’s quite strong. But we’ve got time. I haven’t ordered the evacuation yet, but I will if you think it would be better for the residents.”

“I think they’ll be okay as long as we keep them away from the windows,” Gwen says.

“I assume you know exactly what they’re after?” Lorelei asks.

Gwen nods. “At the Kansas facility, you had a sorcerer named Cameron Marley.”

“I know him,” Lorelei says, with a return nod. “Not your patient, is he?”

“No. I’ve talked to him a couple times, but he’s been catatonic the entire time you’ve had him. Well, the reason for that is that he isn’t actually Cameron Marley. He had summoned up a demon, and the warlock who defeated him put the demon in his body and left Cameron’s soul hanging out in the ether.”

Lorelei frowns briefly, but then gestures for Gwen to go on.

“Long story short, Cameron Marley is possessing Naomi,” Gwen says, “with the help of the original warlock’s daughter.”

“I’ll probably require the longer story at some point, but it’s enough to go on for now,” Lorelei replies. “I presume Cameron would like his body back, before his soul dissipates entirely?” she adds, and Gwen nods. “Very well. Let’s go give it to him.”

“There’s one other thing,” Gwen says. “How’s Abbie feeling today?”

“As well as she ever is. Why?”

Gwen lets out a breath. “We need to take her binding off. She’s the only one here who will be able to stop Sally.”

Stiles frowns. “Who’s Abbie?”

Gwen waves him off. Lorelei is frowning. “Gwen, are you sure?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Gwen says.

There’s a moment of tense silence, and then Lorelei nods. “Then let’s do it.”

“Uh, should we . . .” Stiles says awkwardly, as Lorelei turns to head out of the library.

“Why don’t you stay here?” Gwen says. “You’ve had a long night. You guys can keep an eye on the front. Lorelei will know if Sally gets through.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. Lorelei has barely looked at him, but he figures he’s probably happier that way. And to be honest, he has no problem with staying up here, away from the action. If Lorelei has some ideas about how to handle Sally and Cameron, he’s one hundred percent okay with not being included. In fact, once Lorelei and Gwen have left the room, he sits down on the floor and pulls Derek down beside him. Derek settles down without complaint, and Stiles crawls into his lap, letting Derek wrap his arms around him. The other wolves curl up around him. He feels ridiculously safe, given that Sally is actively trying to break into the house he’s sitting in.

“What happened?” Derek asks quietly.

“In order to get Gwen to cough up Oblivion’s location, Sally decided to ruin all her hard work,” Stiles says, hoping that if he’s flippant enough about this, he might not throw up. When Derek just looks at him with that judgy eyebrow expression, Stiles says, “She buried me. In a coffin. In the ground.”

“Jesus Christ,” Derek says. Several of the wolves whine and crowd closer to him.

“If my estimates of the time are accurate, it took less than thirty minutes and some choice words from your fucking uncle to reduce me to a gibbering mess,” Stiles says, and sighs. “So much for the power of positive thinking.”

“Stiles, I’m pretty sure being buried alive would reduce _anyone_ to a gibbering mess,” Derek says, coming his fingers through Stiles’ hair. “What did Peter say?”

Stiles scowls, because just remembering what Peter did made him pissed off. “He thought I should just give in at the thirty minute mark and start screaming, because, and I quote, I was going to break anyway, so why not just get it over with? And when I didn’t want to do that, he started saying the sort of thing he said just before he put me in his trunk, to freak me out.”

“What a dick.” Lydia feels it necessary to shift back into her human form just to deliver this opinion of Peter’s behavior.

“Yeah.” Stiles feels the queasiness start to choke him off again. He closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths. “On the one hand, it did work incredibly well. I had a total mental breakdown, most of which I don’t even remember. Which apparently did get Gwen to give up the location, which in turn got me out of the ground. But I still want to wring his neck.”

“You’re welcome,” Peter says, without bothering to appear.

“Shut your dick holster,” Stiles replies.

Peter’s only response is a snort of laughter.

Derek rubs slowly at Stiles’ back and says, “I agree that it was a completely dickish thing to do, but I don’t think he did it for the reasons you think he did,” he says. “And it wasn’t about his opinion of you. It was his opinion of _us_.”

“Meaning?” Lydia asks.

“Stiles, I assume you agree that _eventually_ you would have broken down, right?” Derek asks. “I mean, shit, anyone would.” He doesn’t stop that soothing motion on Stiles’ back as he speaks. “But you resisted because you knew we were looking for you. You figured, if you could hold out, we would find you. And if you could keep it together until then, Sally wouldn’t get the location out of Gwen. You had faith in us. But Peter doesn’t. Peter only thinks about what _he_ can do in any given moment – or, since he’s now stuck in your head, what _you_ can do. Peter doesn’t wait to be rescued.”

“We would have figured out you were in Faerie,” Lydia says, her voice somewhat tart and irritated. But then she admits, “But it would have taken a while, probably.”

“I don’t even think it’s that Peter thinks poorly of us,” Derek says. “He just . . . he’s self-reliant. He was always that way.”

“I guess you’re right,” Stiles says. “I mean, you’re definitely right in that I was waiting for a rescue. And that I would have by far found that preferable to letting Sally see me break down.”

Lydia looks around, and frowns slightly. “If we’re quite done psychoanalyzing your dead uncle,” she says, “does anyone know where Jackson went?”

Everyone looks around, including the wolves. Jackson is nowhere to be seen.

“He must have gone with Gwen and Lorelei,” Stiles says, feeling somewhat uneasy about this. Jackson still has Marzanna sitting on his shoulder, and Marzanna was chomping at the metaphorical bit to get to Jikininki. Stiles doesn’t know exactly what Lorelei has planned for Cameron Marley’s body, but she’s pretty sure that kicking Jikininki out of it was part of the deal. “You know what, I don’t care. If he’s gone to get Marzanna a snack, more power to him.”

“By all accounts, Jikininki is a pretty bad demon,” Derek says. “I guess we’ll take Marzanna any day, huh?”

“If Marzanna wins,” Lydia says.

“I wouldn’t take any other odds,” Stiles says.

“Fair.” Lydia stands up and walks over to the window. She stands there for a minute while Stiles continues to cuddle with wolves, feeling his pulse even out. “Something’s happening,” she says, and it immediately skyrockets. Derek growls a little, but helps Stiles back to his feet and over to the window. Stiles looks out to see Lorelei carrying a man outside. It’s the same man they met in Kansas, presumably Cameron Marley. She sets him down on the ground and then backs up several paces.

Stiles jumps as he hears footsteps on the stairs, but it’s only Gwen. She comes over to the window with them. “What did Lorelei do?” Stiles asks.

“Well, she exorcised the demon,” Gwen says, “so that’s an empty body. Then she put some spells on that empty body that would make it an extremely bad idea for anyone to come home to roost.”

“Do you think Cameron will know?” Derek asks.

“I’m not sure Cameron will care,” Gwen says. “His time is running out and he knows it. Better to try to fight off whatever Lorelei did to his body than to keep trying to survive in Naomi’s.”

Lorelei, standing behind Cameron, is making some complicated hand gestures. “All right,” she said a moment later. “Here’s what you came for. I’ll be having my sister back now.”

“What’s she doing?” Stiles asks.

“She’s taking down the outer barriers,” Gwen says. “No point in standing around for hours while we wait for Sally and Cameron to break through.”

“They’d be more tired out when they got here,” Derek says.

“It’ll be fine,” Gwen says. Her face is calm, blank, almost remote. Stiles wonders exactly what plan she and Lorelei cooked up, but he finds that he doesn’t really care. Whatever it is, it came from the minds of two of the strongest and smartest people he knows. If Gwen says they have the situation under control, he’ll believe her without reservations.

Naomi’s body floats into the clearing. Cameron is clearly still using telekinesis to control it. “Back up!” he shouts at Lorelei. She does as she’s told. Like Gwen, she looks calm, but Stiles can see the rage in her face in the way she clenches her jaw. Cameron comes forward and kneels down in front of his long-lost body for several minutes. “You’ve done magic on me,” he says.

Lorelei says nothing.

“Undo it,” Cameron says. “All of it. Now.”

“Why should I?” Lorelei asks. “You obviously can’t hurt my sister if you’re dependent on her body.”

“There are plenty of people here we can hurt,” Cameron says.

Lorelei stares him down for a minute, but then nods. She places her hand on Cameron’s shoulder and closes her eyes. She stays that way for several long minutes that tick by with agonizing slowness. Stiles is practically going out of his mind from waiting. He wants to _do_ something.

Finally, Lorelei removes her hand and steps away again. “All yours,” she says.

Moments later, Naomi collapses into a heap. Lorelei moves forward to catch her, and they sag to the ground together. Then Cameron stands up in his own body, his eyes fever bright and face excited. “Yesssss,” he hisses, holding his hands out and clenching and unclenching his fists. “Jikininki!” he shouts, and even without magic, Stiles can see the effect of the demon settling back onto Cameron’s shoulder. The patch of grass he’s standing in starts to wither and die, and through the open window, Stiles can smell a faint stench, like rotten meat. “Kill her!”

Lorelei holds one arm up to protect herself and Naomi, and the clash of magic creates a rippling shock wave that rocks the building on its foundations. Before Cameron can do anything else, Lorelei and Naomi are gone.

“Come out and fight, you cowards!” Cameron shouts. “Or are you afraid of my demon?”

The temperature starts to drop. Frost appears on the grass, on the edges of the windows. Stiles finds that he can see his breath.

“Oh, shit,” Lydia says.

“Nobody’s afraid of your demon, you little pissant,” Jackson says, stepping off the porch. “Your demon is a pathetic waste of space, just like you.”

“Fuck you!” Cameron retorts.

Jackson rolls his eyes. “Anyway, what’s your beef with Oblivion? They kept your fucking body safe for the last twenty years. Shouldn’t you be a little more pissed at Sally, for keeping you in a jar?”

“I’ll deal with her when I’m done,” Cameron says with a sneer. “My demon and I can handle anything she can throw at me.”

“Like you handled what her father threw at you?” Jackson gives a snort. “You’re way out of your league, jackass. You got what you wanted. Pack up, go home, and you might actually survive to enjoy it.”

“What I’m going to enjoy is beating the shit out of you!”

“Sure, buddy,” Jackson says. He raises his hand and makes a flicking motion. Cameron goes flying backwards and slams into a tree. Moments later, a wave of that stench rolls over the clearing. Several of the wolves gag, and Stiles hastily throws the window shut.

Jackson seems unaffected. Actually, he looks annoyed. He just shakes his head and says, “Go get it, Marzanna.”

Later, Stiles thinks that a fight between two demons was actually much less exciting than he would have anticipated. They’re creatures of energy, not of physical matter, so their blows can only be seen in flashes of light and rumbles of thunder. Some of the trees break and crash to the ground. The temperature fluctuates rapidly. It’s interesting in an academic sort of way, but not the movie-making material he would have anticipated.

Cameron stays at the edge of the clearing, shouting orders and obscenities. Jackson doesn’t move an inch from right where he is, except to occasionally rub his nails against his shirt or give an irritated sigh. The only time he speaks is when he shouts, “Stop playing with your food, Marzanna! We don’t have all day!”

There’s a crack of thunder so loud that the wolves cringe, covering their ears with their paws. Ice coats everything in the clearing and the cold snap is so vicious that Stiles involuntarily flinches away from it. There’s a buildup of tension in the air, almost electric, and Stiles sees that all his hair is standing on end.

Then, abruptly, it’s gone. The clearing is green and bathed in the dim dawn light that filters through the trees. Everything is quiet and still, and although the temperature is still a little on the chilly side, it’s nothing compared to the wintery blast a few moments previous.

“J-Jikininki?” Cameron asks, and for the first time, the bravado is gone from his voice.

“God _damn_ that was satisfying,” Jackson says, his head lolling back, eyes closed like he just had an orgasm. “Holy shit. I see why people think having a demon is dangerous.”

“You – you son of a bitch!” Cameron screams, launching himself forward.

Jackson slaps him down without moving a muscle. Cameron goes flying backwards and lands hard in the dirt. He rolls several times and then fetches up against Sally’s feet.

“I have to do everything myself,” Sally says, with a loud, melodramatic sigh. She offers Cameron a hand up. He accepts it. She brushes the dirt off his shoulders and gives his cheek a comforting pat. “Think you’re gonna make it, bucko?” she asks.

“I’m fine!” Cameron snaps.

“Pity,” Sally says, and thrusts a knife into his stomach. Cameron makes a choked noise, sagging against her. Sally shoves him away. He lands on the ground, curling up around the wound. “Stiles did warn you, Cameron,” Sally says. “I never let anyone live after they’ve seen my . . . oh, you’re dead already, aren’t you. Nobody ever lets me finish.”

“Jesus Christ,” Stiles mutters. He doesn’t feel any pity for Cameron, but to have died so quickly meant that Sally had stabbed him in the abdominal artery. He supposes it shouldn’t be a surprise to him that Sally is good with a knife, but he can’t help but recoil.

“Jackson!” Sally says, stepping over Cameron’s body and twirling the knife around her fingers. “I suppose this was always meant to be, wasn’t it? The daughter and the protégé. Of course, he wouldn’t have needed you if he’d had me. But I’m eager to see what he taught you.”

“He taught me not to start fights I can’t finish,” Jackson says.

Sally smiles. “He taught me that, too.”

“Sally? Is that you?”

Everyone stops and turns to look at the new voice entering the conversation. There’s a woman standing on Oblivion’s front steps. It’s hard to guess her age. Her skin is smooth but her blonde hair is heavily salted with gray. She’s wearing a nightgown and has bare feet, and is completely devoid of makeup.

Stiles’ gaze snaps back to Sally, but he sees no recognition there. Her face has that blank, questioning look on it she gets when a new variable enters an equation.

“Sally,” the woman says, and walks forward with her arms held out in front of her. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. “My dear, sweet daughter. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought I would never get this chance.”

“What . . .” Sally says, and stands there in surprise as the woman embraces her. She doesn’t return the hug, but she doesn’t fight back, either. She just stands there with a ‘does not compute’ look on her face.

“Oh, Sally, I love you so much,” the woman says, hugging her and sobbing. “I’ve missed you. Every day I’ve missed you. I hated missing you so much. I never had a chance. He made me have you. He forced me to love you. I love you, Sally. I love you. I hate loving you . . . I hate it so much . . .”

“What is happening?” Derek asks in a low voice, but Stiles’ gaze is fixed on the drama unfolding in the clearing.

“Let me go,” Sally says, and tries to push the woman away. It doesn’t work. She tries harder, but her mother just clutches at her, and Sally can’t seem to get free. “What – what are you doing? Let me go!”

“He took you away from me,” the woman says. “I couldn’t stand it. He made me love you. It’s his fault. He didn’t understand.”

“Understand what, let me go, you crazy old woman!” Sally says, still struggling.

“That I have to kill you,” her mother says. “That I would have to kill you if I was ever going to have peace again . . .”

Sally makes a sharp gesture with one hand, and Stiles sees something forming in it. It looks like a little black hole, a vortex.

“No, honey, don’t do that.” The woman’s hand closes over Sally’s, pressing her fist back together, and there’s a little pop as the spell dissipates before it can form. “It’s going to be okay, my love, my darling, my beautiful daughter. It’s finally going to be okay . . .”

Sally has stopped struggling. She’s standing there with wide eyes. The knife has dropped from her hand. Her mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out. It takes Stiles a minute to realize that she’s choking. That her mother is doing some sort of spell that keeps her from breathing. Sally’s hand claws at her throat, claws at her mother’s face. It doesn’t make any difference.

“Shhh,” the woman murmurs, barely audible, and starts to sing. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word . . .”

Somehow, Sally manages to rip free of her grasp. Her eyes dart around like a cornered animal, and then she turns tail and runs. She’s barely taken two steps when she disappears. She opened a Way right in front of herself and vanished through it.

The woman stands there for a long moment, still humming quietly. Then she shrugs and says, “Next time, I suppose . . .”

With a sigh, she turns and shuffles back into the building.

“What the actual fuck just happened?” Stiles blurts out.

Gwen is standing with her eyes closed. It seems to take her a minute to find her voice. “We’re safe now,” she says. “If you’ll excuse me. I’d like to check on Lorelei and Naomi.”

“I’m going with you,” Stiles says, and Gwen gives him a somewhat exasperated look but doesn’t outright argue. The wolves trot down the stairs after him, and they find Lorelei and Naomi in what looks like a living room. There are several large sofas and chairs, a television, stacks of games and books. Lorelei has gotten Naomi settled into one of the armchairs and is kneeling in front of her, smoothing down her hair.

Instantly, Stiles wishes that he hadn’t gone with Gwen. This is an intimate moment, and he has no right to see it. He ushers the wolves back into the kitchen and wonders if Lorelei will mind if she raids the refrigerator. Dinner was a long time ago now.

Jackson has clearly already had the same thought, and in fact his entire front half is in the pantry. He comes out of it with his hand in a box of cereal. “Hey,” he says, mouth full. Danny gives a wolfish little huff and pushes his head against Jackson’s thigh. “Yeah, whatever, you big baby,” Jackson says.

“You okay?” Stiles asks him.

“Dude, I’m better than okay,” Jackson says. Then he sees the look on Stiles’ face and rolls his eyes dramatically. “Don’t look so fucking _worried_. I’m not about to go on a murder spree. Marzanna getting a demonic snack was awesome, but it’s not like I’ll have the opportunity for it to happen _often_. Keep your pantyhose on.”

Stiles raises his hands in surrender and then says, “Is that Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Hand it over, man.”

They wind up sitting around with bowls of cereal. The wolves are naked and nobody seems to care except Jackson, who’s trying very hard not to look at Lydia. She rolls her eyes at him but doesn’t comment. Instead, she asks, “Did you see where Sally’s mother went?”

“Yeah,” Jackson says. “She came wandering in and curled up in a corner in a room down the hall. I let Wilma stay with her. She gets upset when she sees people crying. Likes to help out.”

Stiles had been wondering where Jackson’s familiar had gone. He’s caring less and less as the moments go by. Mostly what he cares about right now is the cereal. Then he might care about a nap. He hopes that Sally is done with this bullshit. Cameron and his demon have been dealt with, so that’s a plus, but he still needs a long-term plan for Jonas. If Sally slinks back to Massachusetts to lick her wounds, he might get some peace and quiet until the Conclave.

He’s starting to nod off into his cereal bowl when Gwen walks in. She looks calm and collected, just a little tired. “I’m guessing that you have some questions for me,” she says, and gestures for him to go with her. “Now’s your chance.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, this installment of TSOIP has been a wee bit bumpy, but I've had fun overall. I hope you've all enjoyed it!
> 
> Thank you so much for all your kind comments, both those of you who have been around from the beginning and the newcomers who have had the stamina to plow through this monstrosity. I love each and every one of you. <3
> 
> Which brings me to an important announcement .... the next fic will be .... *gulp* the last in the series! It will be called Ten Little Hunters and will be coming soon to a website near you. =D

 

The pack gives Stiles a questioning look as he stands up to follow Gwen, and he waves them off. Derek accompanies him, of course, but the rest of the pack stays in the kitchen. Of course, they’ll probably still hear the conversation, but that’s not his problem. Gwen knows that, so if she doesn’t try to avoid it, she probably doesn’t care. She goes back into the living room, which is now empty, and sits down on one of the sofas.

“So,” Stiles says, sinking into the chair across from her. Derek settles next to him, perching on the arm of the chair, face set in that blank expression that’s almost a scowl. Stiles leans against him without really thinking about it, and Derek reaches up and rubs absently at Stiles’ back. “Sally’s mother.” He gives it a moment, watching Gwen and gauging her reaction. There isn’t much of one. “How long have you known?”

“That question is harder to answer than you might think, because I figured it out in stages,” Gwen says. “I met Abbie almost five years ago now. At that point, I knew she had been the victim of rape and had borne a daughter. I knew that the sorcerer had coerced her into caring for the daughter and it had broken her mind. But I had no idea who that sorcerer was, beyond that his first name was Sebastian. I did ask what had happened to her daughter, and she said she didn’t know. Lorelei told me that she had been taken in by a family that could keep her safe from her father, and been adopted.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, and then says nothing, letting her continue.

“Much later, I met you, and learned about Sebastian Stone,” Gwen says. “I figured that there probably weren’t that many warlocks named Sebastian wandering around, so it did occur to me that he was probably the Sebastian in question. But to be honest, I didn’t think the fact that he had a daughter was at all relevant. Everything I had been told led me to believe that he had no contact with her.”

Stiles pushes his hands through his hair. “So when you found out about Sally . . .?”

“Then, yes, I knew that Sally’s mother was here,” Gwen says.

“And you didn’t say anything?”

Gwen gives a quiet sigh. “For one thing, patient confidentiality prevented me from doing that. Secondly, I didn’t think it would be in Abbie’s best interest. What I did tonight was motivated by necessity, and I wish I hadn’t had to do it. And thirdly, Sally clearly didn’t care about what had happened to her birth mother, so I didn’t really think the knowledge would be at all helpful to you.”

Stiles purses his lips and tries not to convey his annoyance. He knows that Gwen is right, and he knows that patient confidentiality is important to her. He just can’t help but feel like if he had known, he would have been able to use it somehow. He hates not having all the information, hates feeling like he can’t trust people to tell him things that he needs to know.

“Stiles,” Gwen says quietly, “she’s my patient, too. And I have to look out for her best interest. She’s going to be hurting from this for a long time.”

“I know,” Stiles says, and sighs. “And I know you’re right. It’s not like knowing where she was would have done me any good.”

Derek’s thumb traces over the back of Stiles’ neck, and he says, “She seemed to have some kind of immunity to Sally, though.”

“Not exactly,” Gwen says. “She _countered_ Sally. And Sally was too surprised to stop her. That won’t happen again. Abbie was only ever going to be able to have the upper hand over Sally once.”

Derek nods a little, and looks at Stiles. Stiles rakes both hands through his hair and says, “I hope she’s all right, Gwen.”

“She will be,” Gwen says. “It just takes time.”

Stiles leans against Derek. “I guess things didn’t end as badly as they could have,” he says. He sighs. “Guess I’d better face the music.”

“I really think Lorelei probably won’t skin you alive,” Gwen says. “You want me to go with you?”

“No,” Stiles says. “You go see to Abbie. And anyone else here who’s traumatized by, you know, warlocks and demons attacking and duking it out on the front lawn of the place that’s supposed to keep them safe. All that stuff.”

Gwen arches an eyebrow, but then smiles at him and nods and stands up, heading down a hallway. Stiles takes Derek’s hand and then goes looking for Lorelei. He finds her helping clean up the front porch with another employee. She looks up when he comes over, and says, “I’ll be right back,” to the other woman. Then, to Stiles, she says, “Walk with me.”

“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, falling into step beside her. “I just kind of feel like I should know.”

Lorelei gives him a withering look.

Stiles just shrugs. They walk in silence for a few minutes. “How’s your sister doing?” he finally asks.

“Physically, she seems fine,” Lorelei says. “Mentally, it will take some time to know. My sister is strong. She might come back.”

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says.

“I appreciate your condolences,” Lorelei says. “If you mean it as an apology, I don’t accept it.”

Stiles cringed.

“This isn’t something you should apologize for,” Lorelei says. “You issue apologies for things that you were responsible for. This doesn’t fall into that category.” She sees Stiles open his mouth, and says, “I know. You’re going to say that Sally wouldn’t have attacked Oblivion if she hadn’t been trying to mess with you. And that’s true. But that still isn’t make it your fault. And she’s hardly the first person to come after us. Or, for that matter, the most successful.”

“Yeah?” Stiles sighs. “Everyone Sally has gone after in order to hurt me . . . she’s hurt Chris, Jake and Phil . . . she got Liliana Santos murdered when all she wanted was to help people.”

“And she’s hurt you,” Lorelei says. “That’s what you keep overlooking. It’s not as if Sally has done this to help you, or because she likes you. She has done this to _hurt_ you. _You_ are the one who’s been hurt, over and over again. But because other people have been hurt, too, you seem to be ignoring that fact.”

Stiles realizes he’s standing with his mouth open, and wonders if he should shut it.

“I’ve been talking to your pack,” Lorelei says. “Should we summarize what Sally has been responsible for? What happened in Oregon got you cursed and put you in immense pain. When she sent Deucalion to town, you – ”

“Actually, I’m okay without the summary,” Stiles interrupts hastily. Lorelei arches her eyebrows again. “But you’re right. I guess I wasn’t thinking of it that way.”

Lorelei reaches out and squeezes his shoulder. “You’re a victim in this, Stiles. Just as much as my sister is.”

“I screwed up, though,” Stiles says. “I led her right to you.”

“Admittedly, that wasn’t your finest moment,” Lorelei says, “and I think I’ll give you my private number so next time you think I’m in trouble, you can just call me. But you were trying to help, Stiles. You thought we were in trouble so you tried to help, and the information deficit you were working in wasn’t your fault. We’re secretive for a reason, but it _does_ backfire on us sometimes.”

“You can say that again,” Stiles says.

They turn around and start heading back to the building, walking in silence.

“So,” Lorelei says, as the house comes back into sight. “Gwen’s told me about this young man that you’ve been having trouble with. I agree that it’s a case we normally wouldn’t take. But given the givens, I think we can make an exception. To be honest, I am curious if Sally worked magic on him, or just more commonplace manipulation. Still, we’ll see whether or not we think we can rehabilitate him. And if not, we’ll keep him safe.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, feeling a wash of relief.

“For now, you should get some rest,” Lorelei says. “The outer defenses have been put back up. You’ll be safe here.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

The rest of the pack is waiting for him just inside. He thinks about trying to find a bedroom, but this place seems to be set up so all the residents can have their own rooms, and he doesn’t want to intrude. He heads for the room with the couches instead. They’re very comfortable couches. He slumps down on one and Derek curls up at his feet. The other wolves are all gathered around. He’s dimly aware of someone tossing a blanket over him, and then he’s asleep.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stiles knows that he doesn’t have to go back to Wyoming to see Jonas into the arms of Oblivion, but he wants to. He wants to see it done. When that comes up, he realizes that he has no idea what day it is or how much school he’s missed. He shoves the thoughts aside. He’ll catch up. He always does, somehow.

The pack doesn’t need to come, so he sends them to return the pick-up truck that they had borrowed. Gwen asks if she can come along back to the den so she can get her things and her dogs. Jackson will build Ways to speed the process up.

“Are you sure that you’re going to be safe?” Stiles asks, fretting. “What if Sally comes after you again?”

“The possibility had occurred to me,” Gwen says. “I’m going to come straight back. Lorelei says I can stay here for a few months. I won’t be able to see all my patients, but I already do a lot of skype sessions, so hopefully it won’t slow me down very much.”

“Okay.” Stiles lets out a breath. He had been worried that Gwen would argue with his urge to put her in protective custody. “It’s only three months until the Conclave. Hopefully after that, you’ll be able to go back to Fresno.”

“I’m sure that you’ll get everything sorted out,” Gwen says. She gives him a long hug. “And we’ll still have our session next week. There’s some stuff you’re going to need to unpack, I’m sure.”

“Yeah. You don’t . . . you’re okay still being my therapist, after all this?”

“Stiles, now that I’ve seen your life up close, I’m even _more_ okay with being your therapist,” Gwen says, and laughs. “But you’re going to be just fine. Okay?”

“Okay.” Stiles pulls away. “I’ll see you soon.”

Jackson builds them the Way back up to the prison in Wyoming. “Okay, you’re all set,” he says.

Stiles nods and says. “So, uh, thanks. You know, for helping out. And all that jazz.”

“Go through the portal before we’re old, Stilinski,” Jackson says, rolling his eyes.

Stiles bites back a smile and does as he’s told. The white hallways and faint smell of antiseptic immediately quash the little good humor he had worked back up. Lorelei steps through behind him and then stands in the hallway for a moment, giving a shudder. “This place . . . a lot of very bad things have happened here,” she murmurs.

“Tell me about it,” Stiles says. “No, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

He’s called Allison so she knows that they’re going to be coming, so she’s waiting to greet him. He walks down the hallway as quickly as possible, clutching at Derek’s hand.

“There’s a small hitch,” Allison says, as they reach Jonas’ room.

“When isn’t there,” Stiles says, accepting hugs from Scott and Erica, clinging to both of them for a minute longer than is strictly necessary.

“Mikael thinks that Annika should have a chance to say goodbye to her brother,” Allison says. “They’re already on their way. I called him as soon as I talked to you, to let him know that Oblivion had agreed to take him.”

“Great,” Stiles says.

“Well, in the meantime, I’d like to get started,” Lorelei says.

Allison gestures to the door and shouts, “Have at. Hope you don’t have a problem with four letter words.”

“From Jonas or from Erica?” Stiles asks, and the other pack members give a snort.

“Oh man, you should’ve heard them get into it yesterday,” Scott says, stifling laughter. “Jonas called her a mutt, so Erica called him nature’s floppiest cock goblin.”

Everyone dissolves into laughter. And Allison isn’t wrong. The instant Lorelei opens the door, Jonas unleashes a tirade of profanity about how they can’t keep him here and he’s going to kill them all in a variety of gruesome ways. Stiles walks through behind Lorelei, because he figures that it might help Jonas to vent his anger at someone who actually deserves it.

“My father is going to shred you!” Jonas says.

“Okay, Draco,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Will that be before or after you apologize for trying to have him killed?”

Jonas scowled. “He deserved it. That patronizing son of a bitch doesn’t deserve to live.”

“Aaaand, we’re done here,” Stiles says, but he looks at Lorelei.

She shakes her head. “No magic. It’s all him.”

“Good luck with him,” Stiles says, and leaves the room.

He had slept for two hours at the Oblivion facility, and although he’d like to get more sleep, it’s not going to happen here. In fact, despite the exhaustion, he’s twitchy and restless. He wonders when the last time he took his medication was. He can’t remember. He suspects he might have eaten an entire box of cereal while he was at Oblivion without realizing it. With nothing to do but wait, he’s close to climbing the walls.

“Hey.” Derek leans in and nuzzles the top of Stiles’ ear, then pushes him over to Erica. “Go unwind.”

“In this place, are you kidding?” Stiles asks, shuddering.

“Naw, we can do it,” Erica says cheerfully. “I found the barracks where the employees were staying. Five hundred percent less creepy, trust me. You’ll feel a lot better after I suck your dick.”

That’s pretty much never untrue, so after a quick check over his shoulder to double check that Derek’s okay with it – a reflex Stiles thinks he’ll never lose even though Derek has been okay with Erica and Stiles’ relationship for over a year now – he follows Erica down the hall.

The barracks _are_ less creepy, and he absolutely _does_ feel better afterwards. So much better that while Erica is talking about how she could really go for some nachos right now, he falls asleep again. He wakes up to a quiet knock on the door, and Allison pokes her head in. Erica is long gone, probably off to find something to eat. “Hey, you awake?” Allison says softly.

“Mmmf,” Stiles replies.

“Mikael’s here. You don’t have to get up if you don’t want to. I just thought I would let you know.”

“Mmkay,” Stiles says. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

The barracks room has a shower, so he uses it. He checks his phone to see that he slept for about another two hours. That’ll get him through the rest of the day, and then he can just go to bed at a decent-ish hour once he’s back at the den for the night. His stomach growls, and he wonders whether or not he’ll have time to eat.

He finds the Aronssons standing outside Jonas’ door, having a quiet conference with Lorelei. All of them look up when he approaches. Mikael has dark circles underneath his eyes, and he has his arm around Lena, his wife. Annika looks like she’s been crying, and when Stiles walks over, she hauls off and punches him across the face. Stiles reels backwards, and several of the wolves move to catch him, growling and snarling.

“You son of a bitch,” Annika says, dissolving into tears. “That’s my b-brother. My fucking _brother_ , you piece of shit. How could you? How c-c-could – ” She breaks off and chokes out another sob.

Mikael puts an arm around Annika’s shoulder and pulls her into an embrace, stroking her hair. “She knows it isn’t your fault,” he says. It sounds like he’s saying it as much for Annika’s sake, to remind her, as he is for Stiles’. “She’s just upset. That’s all.”

Stiles nods. He can’t imagine what this is like for Mikael or his family, so he’s not going to judge Annika for how she deals with it. And she could have hit him a lot harder. He accepts the cold can of soda that Scott presses into his hands, and holds it against his cheek.

“Will we be able to visit?” Lena asks, even though Stiles is pretty sure that she knows the answer.

“I’m afraid not,” Lorelei says. “Security is too important to compromise by allowing family members to know where we are.”

“But he might get out someday, right?” Annika asks, wiping her eyes.

“It’s possible,” Lorelei says, in a reserved tone that says nothing about how possible it might be.

Mikael releases Annika and says, “Why don’t you go give him a piece of your mind? You’ll feel better afterwards.”

Annika nods and goes through the door. Stiles hears her screaming a minute later, obscenities that don’t rival Erica’s for creativity, but are certainly just as firmly meant. Mikael looks after her, then turns to Stiles and says quietly, “I haven’t told her about Sally’s role in things. I’d like to keep that from her if at all possible. I love my daughter, but she’s impulsive, and . . . she doesn’t always make good choices when she’s upset.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He can easily picture Annika trying to kick Sally’s ass and getting herself killed in the process. “Has she been told about the cover story?”

“Yeah. But I didn’t name names. I just told her that we were faking Jonas’ suicide so _anyone_ who might want to pit you and I against each other in hunter politics wouldn’t have an excuse.”

“Makes sense,” Stiles says. He extends his hand, and Mikael shakes it. “I’ll see you at the Conclave, then?”

“I’m sure,” Mikael says, a touch of dry amusement in his voice. That’s fair, Stiles thinks, given that he has yet to actually be _invited_ to the Conclave, but everyone is just assuming that he’s going to find a way to be there.

Lorelei glances at them and says, “I’ll build you a Way home. I haven’t been to your den, of course, but I have been to Beacon Hills. So I can get you that far.”

Stiles nods and thanks her again, and a few minutes later, he’s back in Beacon Hills. “Breakfast?” he says.

“It’s one PM,” Scott mentions.

“We’d better get to it, then,” Stiles says, and Scott laughs. “The rest of the pack can meet us at Ernie’s.”

Ten minutes later, everyone’s gathered at a table at Stiles’ favorite diner in Beacon Hills. There are already two pots of coffee on the table. Danny called Jackson, so he’s there too, and there’s only so much scowling that Jackson can do when confronted with Ernie’s famous stuffed French toast. Stiles is halfway through a plate of bacon and eggs when his phone rings. He looks down at it to see Sally’s number, and gestures for the others to be quiet.

He picks up with, “Stilinski Family Reunion Service; you need ‘em, we freed ‘em.”

“You’re not funny,” she replies.

“You thought I was hilarious when I was doing it from inside the coffin you put me in,” Stiles says, taking another drink of his coffee.

“How did you find my mother?”

“You know, if you had stopped to think about what sort of guy your father was, it might have occurred to you that your mother was probably languishing in an Oblivion facility somewhere,” Stiles says, “but you never gave two thoughts to your mother, so why do you care?”

“Why do you think?” Sally asks. “She’s my mother.”

“Uh huh.” Stiles takes a bite of his pancakes. “Nope. You don’t give a shit about family. You’re nervous because she’s just as strong as you and she wants you dead. But the thing is, Sally, I don’t actually know very much about your mother. Maybe if you hadn’t killed your adoptive grandmother, she could have answered these questions for you. C’est la vie, I suppose.”

“You know more than I do,” Sally says.

“Nothing you couldn’t have put together yourself. Sebastian raped your mom and once he found out she was pregnant, got possessive over the idea of a baby. He forced her to carry you to term. But he had no idea what to do with an infant, so he continued to rape her, mentally speaking, and forced her to care for you both physically and emotionally. Your mother was a strong enough person that she constantly fought against the mental manipulation, and tried to kill you at every opportunity. Sebastian eventually got pissed off and came to take you away. What happened after that? I don’t know.  Maybe your mom drew enough attention that Stoddards found you. Maybe Sebastian called them to deal with her so he could stop her from killing you. Maybe your mother called them to deal with Sebastian. Nobody can say now. All we know is that the Stoddards took you, exiled Sebastian, and presumably took enough pity on your mother that they called Oblivion to get her, rather than killing her outright.”

Sally is quiet during all of this.

“Now, since you literally did not care even one iota about any of this before this week, you were probably hoping for more information about what sort of sorceress your mother is or how powerful she is, but I don’t have any information along those lines. So are we done here?”

“We’re done,” Sally says.

“Okay, but are we _done_?” Stiles asks. “In the past week you’ve gotten your boyfriend killed and then had your ass handed to you by a woman in a nightgown. Can I go back to fucking college now, Sally? I have midterms.”

“Answer one question for me,” Sally says, “and we’ll be done.”

“Shoot.”

“How did you get out of the cave?”

Stiles considers his answer for a long minute. “I walked.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s not the answer you wanted,” Stiles corrects her, “but it is an answer.”

Sally is quiet for a minute. “Good luck on your midterms,” she says. “And your finals, for that matter. I suppose I won’t see you until this summer.”

“Maybe not even then,” Stiles says. “I’m thinking about taking the pack and going to South America for the week of the Conclave. I’ve heard that Uruguay is gorgeous.”

At this, Sally finally laughs. “No, you won’t,” she says, and hangs up.

The wolves have been listening, and Scott has been murmuring to Allison so she doesn’t miss what’s happening. When Stiles puts the phone down, she says, “What do you think she’s got planned for the Conclave?”

“I have no idea,” Stiles says. “I could think of a hundred possibilities, and they’re all equally terrible, and each one is even more unlikely than the last.”

“We don’t have to go,” Derek says. He takes Stiles’ hand, thumb rubbing over his knuckles. “You don’t have to try to fix the entire world’s problems, you know.”

“I know. But I do think we need to be at the Conclave. We have a lot of allies who are going, and if we don’t show up, Sally could take a dig at Chris again, or Wednesday.” Stiles shakes his head. “We need to be there. But don’t worry. I’m going to make sure I stack the deck in our direction as much as I can. And then we’ll just have to deal with things as they come.”

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Tom Stilinski listens to Stiles’ description of the past few days with a faint frown on his face. He shakes his head and says, “It’s hard to imagine that she doesn’t care about her mother at all.”

“I know,” Stiles says. “I mean, given how I would give _anything_ – well, almost anything, there are certain things that Mom would kick my ass for giving up – to spend five minutes with mom again, it’s kind of hard to fathom. But Sally’s a psychopath. And I’m sure Sebastian spent most of her childhood telling her that her mother was weak and unworthy.”

Tom snorts. “Seems like the opposite is true.”

“Yep.” Stiles pours himself a second mug of coffee. “I wonder what Abbie would be like today if Sebastian hadn’t gotten to her. I wonder what _Sally_ would be like today if Sebastian hadn’t gotten to her.”

Tom watches his son quietly. “It’s an interesting question.”

“I mean, I’ve dealt with a lot of people who have done awful things,” Stiles says. “And okay, Sally’s probably the worst. But she never had a chance, you know? Not with Sebastian Stone manipulating her when she was just a little kid.”

“Well, that’s part of how you have to deal with criminals,” Tom says. “You have to consider their circumstances along with what they’ve done. Someone who’s desperate for money to save their dying child robbing a gas station is completely different for someone who commits the exact same crime for the fun of it.”

“Yeah. So maybe Oblivion would be a better choice for Sally, but they – they couldn’t hold her. She’s too strong. Deaton was talking about it, about how she could access her full power, and how dangerous that made her. There’s nobody that can stop her.”

“But you don’t think it’s right to just kill her,” Tom says, studying his son carefully.

“I don’t know, Dad. Maybe I’m just overthinking it.”

Tom mulls this over. “Look, son, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you’re capable of thinking about why Sally is who she is. I don’t think it’s a bad thing that you feel sympathy for a little girl who was twisted by other people. Just don’t let being sad about who Sally could have been stop you from protecting people from who Sally really is. No matter what that takes. Okay?”

Stiles looks up at him, and then nods.

“You’re not a killer, Stiles.” Tom reaches out and tousles Stiles’ hair. “You’re just a soldier. Fight the good fight. And don’t let her win. Because I’m not losing you. Is that understood?”

Stiles nods again. “Thanks, Dad,” he says, and lets Tom draw him into an embrace.

“Hey, what’s this, group hug?” Scott asks, bouncing into the kitchen for a refill on his soda. “Awesome! Hey, everyone! Group hug!”

There’s a ripple of laughter from the other room, and a minute later, Stiles and his father are practically smothered with werewolves. Stiles stays there for a long time.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All That Remains [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12167331) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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